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Population: 485----Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time by Michael Perry HarperCollins Publishers Nonfiction: 235 pages “My senior year, I was the only boy on the track team. The picture is there in the 1983 yearbook--just me, up against the wall, grinning, over the caption, ‘Boys Track Team--Mike Perry’ (from “Running the Loop” in Population: 485--Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time by Michael Perry).” A one-man track team? The beauty of smelt feeds? Missing a monthly fire department meeting because of a poetry reading? Is this guy for real? Yes. Yes. Yes. Free-lance writer Michael Perry, who has contributed features and essays for the likes of Esquire, Men’s Health, and Utne Reader, has released his first book through a major New York publishing house, HarperCollins, Population: 485--Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time. Perry, a volunteer firefighter and First Responder in the small, northwest Wisconsin village of New Auburn (actual population: 485) and EMT with the Chetek Ambulance Crew, offers a unique take on smalltown living--through the eyes of a rescue worker. But this is no “hero” book. With self-effacing humor, stellar wit, and phenomenal writing, Perry gives an intelligent, articulate voice to smalltowners. He not only captures the charm and nostalgia of living as a “soft-handed” writer among callous butchers, loggers, and farmers in the town in which he was raised, but the shock and agony of attempting to help his neighbors when they are caught in the clutches of life-threatening situations. Perry’s tales are powerful, engaging, and often hilarious. He writes about the commonplace (jogging the 3.9-mile loop around his ever-changing hometown), the disturbing (explosive vomit, suicide scenes, and highway crashes), and the enthralling (fighting basement fires in sub-zero temperatures with his younger brother, a fellow firefighter). Unlike many books about smalltown life, Perry writes from an inside perspective, giving him the license and the insight to reveal the true nature of his wonderful, quirky, hard-working neighbors. Greg Adams 10/21/02
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