Story in Review: Population 485 by Michael Perry

Population: 485 is Michael Perry’s memoir about coming home a different person after being gone a long time. It’s a story about a small town, family ties, and being a redneck. It’s also a story about love, heartache, and finding your center.

Perry’s storytelling is all encompassing: he can tell a two-page joke that keeps you reading with such attention that you find yourself out of breath. And he can also render in words a moment so tender that your are in tears in a coffee shop without realizing it. Hilarious truths about life in a farming community lie on the page next to gut-wrenching sentences of loss. And he handles it all with a wordy grace that his appearance belies. I have had the privilege to hear Michael Perry speak twice: once at a conference and specifically to writers, and once to the small community of Beaver Dam; both times decked out in torn jeans, well-worn workboots, and various layers of Carhartt and flannel. He claims his humble roots with affection, while still acknowledging that the idyllic small town can be less than idyllic.

Favorite Quotes:

“The trouble is – and this is not a complaint, but a report – the world has our attention in a million ways it never did before, and we find it tougher and tougher to focus our loyalties. Tougher to know where to belong, or to want to belong.” – p. 123

“Life is a preservation project. Our instinct for preservation plays out in everything from the depth of our breaths to an affection for bricks. Even as we fail and cling, trying to bottle time, to save it, we live only through its expenditure. Memory is a means of possession, but eventually, the greatest gift is found in letting go.” – p. 178

“We spend this life looking for a center, a place where we can suspend without a wobble. The specific coordinates are elusive, scalable only by the heart… I took [this sign] for a sort of consecration, and was pleased to note that my heart felt steady.” – p. 202

What made this a good story? Perry is a true storyteller. He can do multiple genres justice on a single page. He treats his neighbors and friends with respect, but doesn’t mind sharing the more colorful bits and pieces of living life alongside them. And at the end, you love New Auburn almost as much as your own home town.

What could have made it a better story? Perry uses an awful lot of big words, and sometimes I think it is because he can – there’s no real reason. I consider myself an educated individual (I have a B.A. in history & English literature – words are kind of my thing), but even I found myself often back-tracking and re-reading to understand sentences at times. My only hesitation to recommend this to someone else is that they will find it a bit sesquipedalian (and yes, I had to look that one up).

What do you think? Have you read any of Michael Perry’s work? I know I want to read more after reading Population: 485.

I read this in 2014 as part of The Empty Shelf Challenge. I hope to have room in The 2015 Book Project for more of Perry’s work.