Truck

Truck: A Love Story by Michael Perry  281 pp.

I chose this book about a man and his truck - a 1951 International Harvester pickup - solely for sentimental reasons. My husband had an old truck - a Chevy - that I nicknamed "His Mistress" because during the time he owned it he spent more time and money on it than he did me. Reading Perry's descriptions of the process of rebuilding his old IH brought back some memories. But this book is much more than that. It is not just about the truck. There are the author's gardening foibles, cooking, tales of his work as an EMT with the local volunteer fire department in his small Wisconsin hometown, descriptions of the locals, his brothers and mother, and small town life in general. Then there is the love story part involving a young woman he meets on a book tour and manages to woo and eventually marry in spite of his history of disastrous relationships for which he mostly blames himself and perhaps on his "crush" on the fictional "Irma Harding", the face of International Harvester's home appliance advertisements and classic series of cookbooks. Perry's writing is funny, touching, and philosophical. The man is a master of hilarious similes and metaphors and I frequently laughed out loud while listening to the audiobook read by the author.

Population: 485 / Michael Perry

Population: 485 : meeting your neighbors one siren at a time by Michael Perry. 234 p.

I had never heard of Michael Perry before Christa blogged about this book, but I thought it would be interesting to read about the life of a volunteer firefighter in a small town. (Even though I personally would never be able to stand living in a small town.) And his anecdotes are all really interesting. What's so striking about these essays, though, is his sense of connection to the place--this small town is his hometown as well, so every bit of it has a memory connected to it. I would find it claustrophobic, but clearly he's grounded by it. I may have to hunt down his other books as well.

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