Critical Praise

"Swells with unadorned heroism. He's the real thing"

——USA Today

"I have been waiting for thirty years for a fresh and talanted voice to rise out of the volunteer fire service in America, and finally it has arrived in Michael Perry's Population 485. Perry is a firefighter/EMT and he makes you feel you are responding right along with him to fires, auto wrecks, even suicides, and his hard work is told with the thoughtfulness and gracefulness of a first responder who cares about people, his town, our country, and the world we live in. But this is more than a book about a small town fire department. It is a literary venture told on the cusp of service to his community - all written with a soft human touch by an intuitive writer with a distinctive and refined American style. Firefighters and EMTs will be talking about this book for a long time to come. And, so will all readers who have a love for American literature. This is a small town story in the big tradition of Sherwood Anderson and James Agee."

——Dennis Smith, Report From Ground Zero

"This is a quietly devastating book--intimate and disarming and lovely."

——Adrienne Miller, Esquire