American Idyl: taking a book vacation through Wisconsin and Twilight land

Photo from Michael Perry at sneezingcow.com

Sometimes you just have to “get out of Dodge.”

There is no cheaper or healthier way to dodge reality than to indulge in a book vacation. When my brain is ready to leave everyday life behind, I usually find myself heading for the library.

Most recently, I took a journey through two small American towns—the fictional Forks, Washington, of Stephenie Meyer’s novel Twilight and the even tinier but very real New Auburn, Wisconsin.

New Auburn is the hometown of writer Michael Perry and the focus of his book of essays Population: 485, Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time.

Where everyone knows your name
I’ve been talking off and on for a few months now with tweens and teens concerning what they find appealing about Twilight. One high school girl said that, sure, the love story in Twilight kept her reading, but that she was also attracted to the romance of small town life.

For many metro dwellers, small towns are alluring. They seem less complicated and more personal—a place where everyone knows your name. But stay long enough and the complexities become apparent, including vampires.

At the beginning of Population: 485, Perry has moved home after living here, there, and elsewhere for twelve years. Much the same as Perry, Meyer’s central character, Bella Swan, has been away from Forks for a long time and is apprehensive about whether she will fit into small town life.

Spending time with the undead
It might be said that both books deal with the undead. Whereas Meyer’s otherworldly characters are vampires, many of Perry’s subjects are neighbors who are dead but still part of the fabric of small town life.

A  nurse and emergency medical technician (EMT), Perry decides to reconnect with his rural childhood community by joining the volunteer fire department. In doing so, he ends up feeling as connected to the dead of his community as he is to the living.

“All around these townships, I see the dead,” Perry writes. “It is landscape as sepulcher. There’s the school sign erected in memory of Tummer Olson; there’s the ski hill where Lisa Stansky died; in that house we found an old woman gone in her bed; here is where Harry lay; there is the house from which they ran with the Jensen baby, too late. Bob shot himself in that cabin, the train hit Jake right at that bend. How important this is, this constant remembering, these unremarkable memorials…. Be thankful for the spirit smoke that lingers for every candle gone out.”

Excruciating sexual tension
Part of what keeps anybody reading Twilight is the excruciating sexual tension between Edward, the vampire, and Bella. Edward fears falling in love with and harming Bella, whose “fragrance” makes him feel “deranged.”

Yet Perry’s book—which is fraught with frightful car crashes, fires, suicides, and storms—is a whole lot scarier and more intimate than Meyer’s. What are a few kindly vampires, ones who refuse to drink human blood, compared to the gore, vomit, and despair faced by an EMT?

I admit that although I read Twilight due to my curiosity about the current mania for vampires in teen novels, it overtook me. Meyer’s ability to make the unbelievable seem believable and to keep the tension rising made me drop a lot of things I was doing just to sit and read. It will be interesting to see how Edward and Bella work out their differences in the sequels to Twilight.

A wicked eye for oddball characters
Nevertheless, Perry is, by far, the better writer. He is a poet as well as an essayist, and this shines through in his vivid imagery. A humorist as well, Perry's wicked eye for blackly humorous situations and oddball characters make New Auburn come alive. (If you are in the mood to smile, you can see one of his "Clodhopper" videos for Wisconsin Public T.V. below.)

Rainy, gloomy old Forks is difficult for me to describe beyond the central settings of its high school and its surrounding forests. Perhaps the town is described in more detail in Meyer's subsequent books.

Life and fame definitely are unfair. Nevertheless, when I googled the title Population: 485, I was surprised when only one out of the first ten results mentioned Perry’s book.

Ah, but Internet fame isn’t everything. I’m pleased to say that my library wouldn’t let me renew Population: 485, because there were others waiting to check it out and go on a book vacation to New Auburn.