This is not a book I would see on a bookstore shelf and think, gosh that
looks like a good book. Even the blurbs on the back don’t really sound all
that interesting. I read it because my book group decided they wanted to
read it.

Michael Perry writes about returning to live, after 10 years in the wide
world, to his home town of New Auburn, WI, pop. 485. In a community of
loggers and farmers he is a writer and poet, and though a native son he needs
something to help ease himself back into the community. He joins the local
volunteer fire department. Each chapter is an essay on some emergency or
another that he is called out on, often humorously told with himself as the
butt of the joke. The story about working on a guy down in a cow barn wedged
between two cows while he, the first responder, is dressed in bike shorts
and work boots and in direct line with a cow’s business side is sweet and
hilarious. His descriptions of the other guys in the department are so
vivid I bet if I drove up to New Auburn, I could pick them out. And when
they go to the local school to do the Firemen’s Talk, which he calls
“cultural interdiction,” I could just see the kids in the gym sitting on the
floor, absolutely enthralled by the firemen. But essentially it’s a
meditation on community and neighbors and being dependant on the people you
live among. I found it engaging and sweet. I hope he writes more.