Population: 485- Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time (P.S.)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.10 (877 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0061363502 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 234 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-11-06 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Welcome to New Auburn, Wisconsin, where the local vigilante is a farmer's wife armed with a pistol and a Bible, the most senior member of the volunteer fire department is a cross-eyed butcher with one kidney and two ex-wives (both of whom work at the only gas station in town), and the back roads are haunted by the ghosts of children and farmers. Against a backdrop of fires and tangled wrecks, bar fights and smelt feeds, Population: 485 is a comic and sometimes heartbreaking true tale leavened with quieter meditations on an overlooked America.
"Love Among the Rubes" according to P. Padden. "Summer comes on like a zaftig hippie chick, jazzed on chlorophyll and flinging fistfuls of butterflies at the sun." If you're past a certain age, that opening line should remind you of the books that you read in your impressionable years; the ones that made you a reader for life. Think Richard Brautigan. Think Thomas Pynchon. Think Ken Kesey or Hunter S. Thompson. Michael Perry has a sensibility and a style that assimilate the best that these guys had to . "I felt as if Perry wrote about his surroundings like he was better then them and they should feel" according to shawna. I felt as if Perry wrote about his surroundings like he was better then them and they should feel blessed with his gracious, educated presence. I am also from Wisconsin, also well educated but I don't go around acting as my presence is a gift to those around me. Shame on you Perry, your not that cool.. "Wonderful, pure and simple." according to flimfrik. I should say at the outset that I am a city girl, a big city girl -- older city woman at this point! -- who has little to relate to in the everyday doings of the residents of New Auburn. And, I'm an avowed fiction reader (for the most part.) But I loved it. It is wise and very funny and I must remember to thank my friend who recommended it to me. It can be read all at once, as I did, or in little bits. The chapters may seem to be rather arbitrarily organiz
Perry's insights into the small-town mentality come from apparent contemplation, and he writes about them with good humor, in prose reminiscent of Rick Bragg's: "The old man says he had a woozy spell, and so he took some nitroglycerin pills. . Six years later, he'd begun to understand at last that to truly live in a place, you must give your life to that place. Perry's mosaic of smalltown life also paints charming portraits of the town's memorable characters, such as the One-Eyed Beagle, another firefighter. From Publishers Weekly When writer Perry returned to his tiny childhood town, New Auburn, Wisc., after 12 years away, he joined the village's volunteer fire and rescue department. This is like saying you had high blood pressure so you did your taxes." In spite of an enormous surprise in the final chapter, the book's lack of central conflict leaves it feeling desultory, like a collection of good magazine pieces rather than a propulsive chronicle of quirky small-towners a la John