Population, 485 : : Meeting Your Neighbors one Siren at a Time

Locations
Call Number: 977.544 Pe
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	977.544 Pe	4-week checkout	On Shelf

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Return of a Native submitted by patricia alvis on August 26, 2007, 8:58pm I heard about this book almost simultaneously from an interview on Whadya Know on NPR and from my aunt who lives in New Auburn. I know the area from visits and associate it with my mother's family and their views on life.
Michael Perry delighted me by both acknowledging the closed and stoic character of the locals and describing the clearly intense family feeling that they hold.
He includes himself in his observations of how we are tied to a place even though we may leave it, and how we may come home again, in his case by joining the volunteer fire department along with his mother and two brothers. Thus he is able to use his RN and EMT training to establish a place for himself in the community, while gaining a tranquil place to write, his privacy protected by the mild nature of local interest in his alternate vocation.
The book is honest, funny, sometimes heartbreaking.
If the genre is to your liking, try Kathleen Norris' Dakota.

Everything you wanted to know about EMT but was afraid to ask. submitted by unknown on August 12, 2008, 2:19pm Michael Perry left his home and family, in the country, when he went to collage. He returned after an absence of ten years as a nurse, EMT and writer. He became a volunteer fireman. I was grabbed in the first sentence. He describes the advent of summer in the country as "a zaftig hippy chick, jazzed on chlorophyll and flinging fistfuls of butterflies to the sun". The writing is astonishingly beautiful though out. There is a lot about the history and culture of fire fighting. He writes extensively about his EMT experience. He describes what he sees, how he feels and how all of this affects him. Perry has a unique view point of his village of 485 people; who are neighbors, family and friends. He helps to save their homes and lives if possible. His mother, sister and brothers are volunteers also. He worries and tries to protect them. He encounters many interesting characters. Two volunteer fireman have donated kidneys. As a person who worked in an ER as a nurse in a small town and raised in the country, these stories ring true.

also--a sense of humor as well as something deeper, and everything in between submitted by hathaway1066 on August 17, 2013, 6:59pm I would second what has been said in other reviews about the insights Perry gives into his community and the nature of his (volunteer) work, but also add that he tells a story well and seasons it in appropriate measures with humor, and a sort of modest wisdom, and serves up a good deal of interesting history, as well.

Riveting submitted by Zekicmom on August 22, 2014, 10:49pm I had to keep reminding myself that this is a work of nonfiction. The people in Michael Perry's book could be characters in any kind of made up story. The author's keen sense of observation and respect for those with whom he crosses paths make me think I should be paying a little closer attention to the characters in my life. I kept hoping for happy endings, but instead was given reality, for good and for bad. I have a greater respect then ever for volunteer firefighters and all first responders after reading Population: 485.

Riding around on a small-town ambulance submitted by valeriemates on August 8, 2019, 12:11pm I read this book after enjoying one of Michael Perry's later books so much that I decided to go back and read all of his other books. In this book he talks about being an emergency responder on the local ambulances and fire trucks in his tiny town.

Be forewarned that there is a lot of death in this book -- often tragic, violent, death. I ended up glad that I had read the book anyway, because I enjoyed Perry's insightful thoughts about the situations that came up, but if I had known ahead of time how much death and tragedy was in this book, I am not sure that I would have chosen to read it.

As always, I loved reading Perry's insights into life, and I loved his interactions with his family. His mom and a brother or two also are emergency responders, so there would often be several Perry family members out on the same emergency call. I loved little details like when a patient was swearing a lot, and so Perry said to him, "Hey, do you see that nurse over there? She's my mom" -- and then the patient stopped swearing.

I am slightly hesitant to recommend a book with so much death in it, but overall I am glad that I read it, so, yes, I recommend it.