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Mike Perry's contemporary memoir, Population: 485 - Meeting Your Neighbor's One Siren at a Time, is essential reading for our time. I grew up in a larger Wisconsin city, which has since "gone to seed," to put it politely. Perry's prose is engaging, vivid and compelling, sophisticated, yet not over-wrought. In addition to the the author's enviably-rendered prose, the subject matter - small town life in rural Wisconsin - as viewed from the perspective of a volunteer fire department paramedic poet - is fascinating. The ways in which a changing economy that favors a minority elite and tests the wills of the majority, who struggle - often with astonishingly commendable grace, to carry on, to survive conflagrations both real and figurative, is truly inspiring. Perry's world is ours, in all its seemingly oxymoronic complex simplicity, beauty, humor and sorrow.
Now of age, we meet her when Jed brings her to a fire department social affair. You will not be disappointed.What this book is about becomes clear at page 206 (paperback edition):"I didn't assume I'd be happy back here. If you're like me, you'll read on, wondering what this book is really about and if you'll again encounter writing as engaging as that first sentence. 234, last page of book): "For my brother, there are dark days ahead. This cannot be printed in a family newspaper.You learn that Perry is, in mid-forties, still a bachelor and survivor of a long string of almost-got-there relationships. Seven weeks after the wedding, Sarah is killed in an automobile accident.Perry writes (p.
I'd have to ease my way back in. I didn't expect to pick up where I left off. [and] The fire department has been the indispensable catalyst."Before you get to this point, you learn that "here" is Perry's birthplace, New Auburn, WI, that his twelve-year absence included summers spent as a ranch hand in Wyoming, graduation from nursing school and training/apprenticing as an EMT and as a firefighter. Perry takes you to fires and on medical emergency calls. The following review was written by Steve Wersan for publication in News & Review, a weekly newspaper in Ridgecrest, CA.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~What do you expect from a book whose very first sentence is "Summer here comes on like a zaftig chick, jazzed on chlorophyll and flinging fistfuls of butterflies to the sun.". When he isn't doing these things, he is writing (articles and books), going on publisher-sponsored book tours and appearing on NPR.Among the many personalities described in the book, you won't soon forget Bob, the Cross-eyed Beagle, whose two ex-wives work together in the same convenience store. Beagle, who is actually cross-eyed, gives a howl-out-loud and slap-your-knees explanation of why he is cockeyed.
But claiming "I am not a marriage grinch," he launches (p. 221) into a moving, must-read paean to the example of married love set by his parents.Toward the end of the book we are introduced to Sarah who has been chasing Perry's brother, Jed, since she was sixteen. His mother and a brother are also members of the volunteer fire department. I had been essentially absent for more than a decade, and knew the whole prodigal returned thing was fraught with the potential for disappointment. The romance flowers and the pair marry.
There are moments of heroism and painfully recalled goof-ups and the sharply limned portraits of those who accompanied him on these calls.Back in "Nobburn" he continues his life as firefighter/EMT. You are taken on EMT calls (skip if this makes you queasy) and you slide along with Perry in the crawl space of a building that is seriously ablaze. Sarah brings a vegetable garden, sunshine and order into the household of a neglectful bachelor. The house [is] suffused with her memory, the most perverse sort of tease."There is a happy resolution to this sadness and to Perry's bachelorhood told in Perry's next book, TRUCK, a love story.
In other words, I could put the book down for a few days and pick it up again without worrying about what I forgot. I read Truck first and enjoyed it, and then read Population: 485 next and really wish I would've done it the other way around. I had not heard of Michael Perry until I knew he was coming to the Appleton Book Festival. Truck was more of a flow, more of an actual story. But, after reading the Population: 485 book, I don't know if I would have opened the Truck book. Each is different: Population is a series of vignettes, sometimes doubling back on each other. Michael's style is unlike I've ever read, language a little more high-faluting than I expected, but I love his insight and his philosophy. I am looking forward to reading Coop.
I stumbled across this book while searching for firefighting stories. I also ordered Truck A love story and dug into that immediately after finishing Population 485. The author's life mimics much of mine living in a small town, serving on a volunteer fire department where life is full of interesting characters. A great summer read. I have completely enjoyed both books very much. The author tells a great story.
It was an OK read, it does give a good perspective of the Author's small town life and its characters. I think if you were a rural small town person, you might think more highly of it. But it didn't have the power to reel in and captivate this suburbanite.
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