Population: 485

Population 485 is Mike Perry’s extraordinary and thoughtful account of returning to his small hometown of New Auburn, Wisconsin after a decade away. Unable to polka or repair his own pickup, his farm-boy hands gone soft after years of writing, Mike figures the best way to regain his credibility is to join the volunteer fire department. Against a backdrop of fires and tangled wrecks, bar fights and smelt feeds, he traces his “calls” on a map in the little firehouse, noticing how the story of this tiny town emerges and builds to a final chapter that is at once devastating and transcendent. Perry crafts a captivatingly comic tale leavened with quieter meditations on an overlooked America as he grows to know his neighbors on a much deeper level.