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Because a couple of folks have asked, the kidney stone story I often perform live is included in this book:

"Off Main Street" Paperback Cover

Also included: stories about truckers, truckin’, truckin’ music, Elvis, Steve Earle, manure, baldness, small-town funerals, tricky book tour moments, veterans, Aaron Tippin, giant musky statues, hot summer days, and existentialist cowboys.

P.S. The title my editor came up with for the kidney stone story was, “Rock Slide!”  I still get a little pale when I think about it.

Sometimes people ask me if the books and the music are connected.  Sometimes, yep.  Amble Down Records compiled the following summary describing the connections from the Tiny Pilot album:

- The opening verse of “Edge of Town” is set on the highway overpasses described on pages 99-104 of Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time (HarperPerennial).

- The album’s title song, “Tiny Pilot,” was written in memory of Perry’s nephew Jake, as described in Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting (released in paperback as Coop: A Family, A Farm, and the Pursuit of One Good Egg).

- “If They Give You Wings” is a song drawn directly from scenes in “Branding God,” the essay found on page 256 of Perry’s book, Off Main Street (HarperPerennial).  The song lyrics also include a Dylan Thomas sample.

- “Harry Was Right” (bonus song available on physical CD version of album only as track #14) is a song set in a real-life bar called The Joynt.  Perry’s readers will recognize the bar and its denizens from Chapter 13 of Truck: A Love Story (HarperPerennial) and may especially enjoy singing along with the bridge, which is a direct quote from the book: No…light…beer!

- Perry wrote the first verse of “Indiana” while driving from Michigan to Illinois on his Coop hardcover tour.  The song makes specific reference to “Seven A.M.,” the Edward Hopper painting that anchors Chapter 8 (beginning on p. 138) of Truck: A Love Story (HarperPerennial).

- The lyrics of “Cissy Moan” invoke Oxford, Mississippi (home of Square Books) and the writers Larry Brown, Barry Hannah, and William Faulkner.  The main character of the song is caught stealing books at “Lemuria” in reference to the actual bookstore in Jackson, Mississippi.

Printable .pdf here.

Over at It’s All About Books, I did a “Pick Five” about my literary influences.  Now I want to be back on the porch at Mom and Dad’s place, reading with the screens open…

I am.  More than one, as a matter of fact.  More on that in time.  As the photo below demonstrates, there is still a ways to go before anything gets slapped between two covers:

As of today, Coop is now officially available in paperback.  Included: new cover, new subtitle, new “P.S.” essay, and tucked in the back there, a little info about this project.

Book tour begins today as well.  Details here.  Before it’s all over, health and fate willing, I’ll go from ‘Sconsin to New York.  Today, however, I’m planting oats.  Pretty much right on the spot where that tot and those chickens are standing: