Michael Perry

An oddball memoir of a small-town prodigal son turned volunteer with the local fire department who returns to his hometown after a decade of exile chronicles life in a village of 485 people in rural Wisconsin. Reprint.

Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time

Population: 485

Anthony C

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.

Population: 485 Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time

Reviews