Publisher’s Description: in over his head with two pigs, a dozen chickens, and a baby due any minute, the author of Truck: A Love Story gives us a humorous, heartfelt memoir of a new life in the country.

Last seen sleeping off his wedding night in the back of a 1951 International Harvester pickup, Michael Perry is now living in a rickety Wisconsin farmhouse. Faced with thirty-seven acres of fallen fences and overgrown fields, and informed by his pregnant wife that she intends to deliver their baby at home, Perry plumbs his unorthodox childhood—his city-bred parents took in more than sixty foster children while running a ramshackle dairy farm—for clues to how to proceed as a farmer, a husband, and a father.

And when his daughter Amy starts asking about God, Perry is called upon to answer questions for which he’s not quite prepared. He muses on his upbringing in an obscure fundamentalist Christian sect and weighs the long-lost faith of his childhood against the skeptical alternative (“You cannot toss your seven-year-old a copy of Being and Nothingness”).

Whether Perry is recalling his childhood (“I first perceived my father as a farmer the night he drove home with a giant lactating Holstein tethered to the bumper of his Ford Falcon”) or what it’s like to be bitten in the butt while wrestling a pig (“two firsts in one day”), Coop is filled with the humor his readers have come to expect. But Perry also writes from the quieter corners of his heart, chronicling experiences as joyful as the birth of his child and as devastating as the death of a dear friend.

Alternately hilarious, tender, and as real as pigs in mud, Coop is suffused with a contemporary desire to reconnect with the earth, with neighbors, with meaning . . . and with chickens.

Paperback edition includes author interview and new “P.S.” essay by Mike updating events (feral guinea hens, anyone?) since the hardcover release.

The CD version of Tiny Pilot includes 3 exclusive tracks not found anywhere else.  It also includes a lyric sheet with song commentary by Mike, and a full-color poster documenting the recording process.

Listen to tracks or access lyrics over here.

Last seen sleeping off his wedding night in the back of a 1951 International Harvester pickup, Michael Perry is now living in a rickety Wisconsin farmhouse. Faced with thirty-seven acres of fallen fences and overgrown fields, and informed by his pregnant wife that she intends to deliver their baby at home, Perry plumbs his unorthodox childhood—his city-bred parents took in more than sixty foster children while running a ramshackle dairy farm—for clues to how to proceed as a farmer, a husband, and a father.

And when his daughter Amy starts asking about God, Perry is called upon to answer questions for which he’s not quite prepared. He muses on his upbringing in an obscure fundamentalist Christian sect and weighs the long-lost faith of his childhood against the skeptical alternative (“You cannot toss your seven-year-old a copy of Being and Nothingness”).

Whether Perry is recalling his childhood (“I first perceived my father as a farmer the night he drove home with a giant lactating Holstein tethered to the bumper of his Ford Falcon”) or what it’s like to be bitten in the butt while wrestling a pig (“two firsts in one day”), Coop is filled with the humor his readers have come to expect. But Perry also writes from the quieter corners of his heart, chronicling experiences as joyful as the birth of his child and as devastating as the death of a dear friend.

Alternately hilarious, tender, and as real as pigs in mud, Coop is suffused with a contemporary desire to reconnect with the earth, with neighbors, with meaning . . . and with chickens.

Read early reviews for Coop

From the opening sentence – The story begins on a pile of sheep manure the size of a yurt – Perry turns TRUCK into an offbeat jaunt in which the author struggles to grow his own food (“Seed catalogs are responsible for more unfulfilled fantasies than Enron and Penthouse combined”), live peaceably with his neighbors (one test-fires his black powder rifle in the alley; another’s best Sunday shirt reads 100 PERCENT WHUP-ASS) and sort out his love life.  Along the way, he starts his hair on fire, is attacked by wild turkeys, takes a date to the fire department chicken dinner, and proposes marriage to a woman in New Orleans.

As with Population: 485, much of the spirit of Truck lives in the characters Perry meets: a one-eyed land surveyor; a paraplegic biker who rigs a sidecar so his quadriplegic pal can ride along; a bartender who refuses to sell light beer; an enchanting woman who existed only on the inside flap of a cookbook, and half the staff of National Public Radio.

From the opening sentence – The story begins on a pile of sheep manure the size of a yurt – Perry turns TRUCK into an offbeat jaunt in which the author struggles to grow his own food (“Seed catalogs are responsible for more unfulfilled fantasies than Enron and Penthouse combined”), live peaceably with his neighbors (one test-fires his black powder rifle in the alley; another’s best Sunday shirt reads 100 PERCENT WHUP-ASS) and sort out his love life.  Along the way, he starts his hair on fire, is attacked by wild turkeys, takes a date to the fire department chicken dinner, and proposes marriage to a woman in New Orleans.

As with Population: 485, much of the spirit of Truck lives in the characters Perry meets: a one-eyed land surveyor; a paraplegic biker who rigs a sidecar so his quadriplegic pal can ride along; a bartender who refuses to sell light beer; an enchanting woman who existed only on the inside flap of a cookbook, and half the staff of National Public Radio.

Includes new essay updating events since the hardcover and two b&w photos (“before” and “after”) of Irma the truck.

From the book jacket:

Read the HarperCollins press release

TRACKS
1. Icarus (For Anneliese)
2. Could Be You
3. Sally & Jack
4. Newfangled Cowboy Way
5. How Many Miles
6. Shaman Girl
7. Somewhere Out In Mudbrook
8. Losing Satellites
9. Still Alive
10. I Never Knew (kitchen table version)

All songs built by Mike.

Michael Perry – acoustic guitar, lead vocals
Justin Vernon – guitars, baritone, bass, drums, piano, harmonies
Phil Cook – banjo, harmonica, harmonies
Billy Krause – acoustic guitar, harmonies
Brian Moen – drums
Mystery Hinder – creaky chair on “I Never Knew.”

Listen to tracks or access lyrics over here.

From the book jacket:

Reviews/blurbs/links