Customer Reviews

Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting

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Coop is one of the best books (and certainly the best memoir) I have read in many years, a perfect book for our difficult times. With humor and grace, Perry takes the reader along for a year of great changes, some positive and some devastating (I will spare the details so as not to ruin the reading experience), showing the reader that there is profundity and beauty in even the most mundane experiences of daily life. I found myself laughing and crying while reading this book, many times on the same page. In the end, what Perry achieves is not only a book about gratitude and reverence for the wonderful people and things we have in our lives, but also a pitch-perfect memoir for men and especially fathers and sons (not to say women and mothers won't love the book as well, because they will, given its universal message). This is a book that will inspire you to take stock of your life and make it a little better each day (while laughing along the way!), and if there is any justice in the publishing world, a book that will be recognized when various "best of" lists are compiled.

Michael Perry's new farm was not much like the one he grew up on. It didn't have sheep or cows --- in fact, it had no animals at all. It lacked the noise of a big family; there was just Perry and his wife, Anneliese, and young daughter Amy. But this small family had dreams of free-range chickens, a bountiful garden and fat pigs, and set out to make their newly acquired patch of Wisconsin land home. Perry chronicles their first year on the farm in his latest book, COOP.

In the course of the year, as they settled in to farm life, something Perry and his wife are both familiar with, the family finds small joys in watching chickens and enormous joys in the birth of their baby daughter. They suffer the loss of family members and dear friends, and work hard in homeschooling Amy, raising two pigs and maintaining the land. All the while Perry still works as a freelance writer, a job that takes him away from home more often than he'd like.

As much as Perry is writing about trying to build a home for his growing family and create a certain level of sustainability and self-sufficiency, he is also writing about his childhood and the Wisconsin farm that he himself lived on growing up. Raised by caring and open-hearted parents who were members of a little known, religiously conservative Protestant group, Perry was surrounded by siblings and family friends, and was expected to work hard on the farm. He and his wife hope to instill much of his parents' wisdom in their daughters, but they also have their own strong ideas about family and farming.

In attempting to find a balance between the two worldviews, Perry shares his thoughts, his successes (raising two healthy pigs for slaughter) and failures (a 50% chicken mortality rate), his moments of pride and his storms of frustration. While his life is not a typical middle-class existence, his hopes, fears, exasperations and jokes will resonate with readers from all different backgrounds.

Perry's memories of his parents, brothers, sisters and the foster children who lived with them are written with honesty and kindness. These are the same qualities that characterize his writing overall. From livestock auctions to home births, from coop building to funerals, Perry shines when documenting the everyday and has a talent for making the everyday extraordinary. His style is humorous but sometimes melancholy, bold and self-deprecating.

Though sometimes a bit repetitive and prone to too much skipping about in time, COOP is a fun and compelling read. Perry is a likable host and guide to mid-western sensibility and the intricacies and rhythms of rural life. In the first pages, he writes, "[W]e are going rural in the hope that we might become more self-sufficient in terms of firewood, an expanded garden, and perhaps a pair of pigs." But quickly after reading this, it becomes obvious that Perry and his family are embarking on a grander journey. They are exploring the concept of roots, literally and figuratively: examining the meaning of home, family and community with their hands in the soil tending to other kinds of growing things.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

Coop is a pretty chaotic memoir, at times, but I also found it to be warm, sometimes heartbreaking and educational. There are few books that have given me so much, without being some sort of self-help guide. I came away with a new appreciation for the small stuff in life, a new found reverence for my loved ones, more respect for animals and nature and a deeper understanding of the importance of being a good father. Oh, and Coop made me laugh a lot, as well!

Many memoirist have a hard time pulling off the self-depreciating humor angle, Perry is definitely a writer that stands out from the rest. He uses his humble beginnings and his misadventures in farming and family to bring the reader into his world. With just the right amount of wit, you see Michael Perry for the kind and considerate father and man that make this world a better place.

In Coop, Michael and his wife share a one-year adventure on 35plus acres of land, with the combining of family, farm and a new child on the way life just is not the simple journey that he remembers with parents that made due in rather unique ways and friends that come to the rescue with inventive solutions to the daily traumas that farm life brings.

If you are looking for a true "farming" book, this is not it, but if you are looking for laugh out loud moments on a farm with a clueless farmer and his flock of family and friends than I highly recommends this book. However, do note that there are gut wrenching moments that will bring tears to your eyes and that will take the reader on a full circle of human emotions.

Full disclosure: I grew up in the suburbs and spend a lot of time in the city so all I know about pigs and chickens is bacon and eggs on my breakfast plate. That didn't reduce by one iota my enjoyment of this book. Michael Perry is one of those rare wordsmiths who could make a book about anything enjoyable and emminently readable. I've read four of his books now and I've always been thoroughly entertained - and enlightened. Two literary references come to mind. First, E. B. White. White was such a great stylist with language. He wrote an essay on the death of a pig that was so beautifully written, it was almost sublime. I think Michael Perry acheives that level in his writing. Second, a line in "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder. A character - Emily - asks if any human beings realize life as they live it, every minute. The narrator answers "a few saints and poets." Most don't. I doubt seriously Perry is a saint - and he would probably be the first one to tell you that. But he's definitely a poet. He has that sensibility. He writes about things so much a part of our lives that many of us take for granted. Reading him makes me slow down and pay attention. He also has a great sense of humor. I highly recommend Perry's books to anyone who appreciates good writing by someone who has something interesting to say.

As with all of Mr. Perry's books I have to say I love it love it love it. I enjoyed this book especially because at the time I received it I'd just had a baby and we have chickens so it paralleled my life in some ways. Mike Perry has such a wonderful smooth writing style. It's always a real joy to read his work.
I liked to hear his thoughts and feelings about his wife's pregnancy and also about his child. His thoughts about family moved me to tears and not just because of the leftover pregnancy hormones. I was also impressed by the fact that he was even able to write while sleep deprived with an infant. My only gripe about Mike Perry's books is that I am sad when they end and am left wanting more.

Michael Perry has knocked the bar up another notch with Coop. His last book Truck (A Love Story) was fantastic, but Coop eclipses Truck with more heart felt moments, and laugh out loud humor. Rarely have I found an author who writes with such verve that paragraphs about pig pen building, and chicken coop construction become literature.
If you begin reading Coop, be prepared to put aside everything else for a few days. It is a compelling read. As I wander into Perry's Northern Wisconsin world, I find myself drawn to care about his family, farm, and friends.
Perry's writing is not only captivating, but also beautiful, even lyrical at times. He writes sentences that resonate with poetic meaning. Sometimes he is hilarious, and sometimes poignant, but always he is genuine.
I guarentee tears in your eyes from laughing and crying with Perry as you read Coop.

I am a Michael Perry fan. When I discovered he had a new book, it was a very good day,

I love the direction his life is taking. Raising pigs and chickens may not be for everyone, but this Chicago girl is fascinated by the lifestyle. In addition, he has kind of fallen into this happy family life which he richly deserves. There are so many wonderful characters in his life. He writes so economically yet evocatively. He is funny and touching, and when I come to the end of one of his books it makes me want to start all over with Population 485 and read straight through to the end. Michael Perry is good people.

"Coop"
"A Year Of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting"

by Michael Perry

Book Review by Jay Gilbertson

The widely popular author of "Population-485, Truck" and many others (and he sings too) is back doing what he does best--chronicling Wisconsin rural life. If you ever considered having a pen full of pigs and chasing chickens while trying to make various writing deadlines--toss in a wife and kids, an array of colorful memories, and you have the basic ingredients of Perry's latest work; "Coop."

The author has penned a memoir of a year in the life of a dairy farmer's son who struggles with the fact that--he an't like his Daddy. Meaning--Perry is no farmer. That's the underlying root that Perry wrestles with, and boy does it seem to drive him crazy. It's the writing that kept me turning the pages even though, more times than not, I had to consult the computer for definitions of Perry's unique word choices. Though it's obvious he's a brilliant wordsmith, he shines brightest when describing his world as he trudges his way through it. The man drinks up experiences and reflects back on them in a refreshingly imaginative way that carries the seemingly mundane daily farm life into new realms.

Throughout the year, Perry laments that he has yet to build his dream coop and from the constant self-deprecating banter he unfurls about his lack of building skills, I really had to wonder why in the world he didn't just hire the job out? Standing by his side is the near-saintly wife who can inspire affection in Perry by simply performing a farmer-snort, (think air hanky and you're close) births their baby at home and can butcher a deer on the dining room table like no one's business. Sounds like a match made in heaven and perfect material for a darn good read.

Perry adopts his wife's child from a previous marriage and `Amy' begins asking about God and this, in turn, throws Perry into a really sticky situation. It seems that his parents were (and still are) Fundamentalists belonging to a rather obscure sect called simply "Truth." Though he never comes right out and says it, Perry seemed less than impressed with religion overall and disappointed in the specific one his parents hauled him off to as a young boy. Yet, after their second child is born, Perry and family head off in search of the right church in hopes of re-creating the foundation that his parents had given him.

The most moving passages in this work were the horribly sad deaths that Perry experienced during the writing of, "Coop." Several friends pass away and leave Perry in a mist of memories that have the power to pull and tug him in countless directions. Then his brother's son drowns in a pond and it is here that Perry lays all bare, displaying his greatest gift. Perry understands loss and despair in all its endless depth and expresses it with a full pallet of emotion; his introspection within this realm is simply extraordinary.

And yes, in the end, Perry builds his coop--and--it's cool.

This was just a great read for me and I think anyone that has even thought of living more simply. If you have grown up with chickens or on a farm it will be a real treat!