Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren At A TimeHarperCollins -- hc
New York -- ©2002 -- 234pp
ISBN: 0-06-019852
After twelve years away, a man returns to his home town (a small, rural town) and joins the fire department, and writes about his experiences.
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A memoir, with distracted focus between life in rural America, working on a small town's volunteer fire department, bachelorhood, and death.
The book lacks a focus. Even a memoir has some kind of focus but this tried to do too much. The humor was strained. Things that I thought ought to be laugh-out-loud funny were only slightly amusing. He didn't seem to know how to set up his jokes efficiently and humorously.
Mostly I found this a bit depressing. So many of the experiences that he writes about seemed to end in death. It sure makes me want to steer clear of New Avalon, Wisconsin.
There are some nice reflections on small town life and death and volunteer work, but it was work. It was not an effortless read. I am not impressed with Michael Perry's writing and won't seek out his other work based on this.
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