Just finished Michael Perry’s Population: 485. Perry is firefighter/EMT in a small town in Wisconsin (population 485 …). Definitely worth reading. For a work framed by death and filled with vomit, blood and firefighting, it’s an incredible affirmation of life. Perry’s a good writer who can turn a phrase, and he doesn’t drift into the syrupy “firefighter hero” thing that seems so prevalent post-9/11. There’s a Garrison Kiellor quality to his storytelling and the people who populate these ruminations on small-town life. It’s worth checking out.
“This is how it goes when you die in this way, people stand around your body, poke it, turn it over to look at your wounds, conjecture about how it might have gone. One minute you’re alive and flying, the next you’re cooling in the leaves. You drop to the temperature of the dirt, and it’s all over.”
If nothing else, check out his website: SneezingCow.com.
Thanks to Anita for sending me this book, a verbal bolt from the blue. Never heard of it and was a bit dubious at first, but it pulled me in.