The Bookworm: 'Danger, Man Working'

Danger, Man Working, by Michael Perry. 227 pages. Wisconsin Historical Society Press. 2017.

Every writer has advice for aspiring writers. Mine is predicated on formative years spent cleaning my father’s calf pens: Just keep shoveling until you’ve got a pile so big, someone has to notice. (p. ix)

I love me some Michael Perry, so when I found Danger, Man Working while perusing the shelves at the Cole Library, I gladly checked it out.

Danger is a selection of “writing from the heart, the gut, and the poison ivy patch,” as the subtitle says. It includes essays, literary journalism, and bits and pieces that became longer work. Some of the pieces may have been included in his earlier books, but most of it seemed new to me. It is a nice mix of subjects, but the pieces mostly fall under the themes of its three sections: “Men Among Men,” “Alive, Dead, and in Between,” and “Faith and Music.” It spans cryonics, puking, guns, musky fishing, and rafting through the Grand Canyon with Creationists. One piece is about musician Greg Brown; Perry interviews him as they sit on a bench in the Ped Mall in downtown Iowa City.

Perry is among my favorite writers. He can, as one Amazon reviewer wrote back in the day, “make dirt interesting.” That ability is on display in Danger. His writing is accessible and spot on. He has an incredible eye for detail and easily connects the reader with the subject. Some of the literary journalism in Danger is beautiful and insanely interesting. I don’t fish, but I loved his piece about fishing for musky. Perry has a way of making everything interesting, personal; he writes at a relatable level. Among my favorite pieces in the book are “Shock and Awe,” which is about two disabled vets who try to climb Mount Rainer; “Health Secrets from the Morgue,” where he observes an autopsy (which was sometimes not easy reading); “The Power and the Glory,” about runner Ryan Hall; and “Running the River Righteous.”

Despite what I said about Perry’s writing being relatable and accessible, most of the music pieces in Danger are unreadable. They are confusing and hard to follow. They did not grab and hold my interest, and their overarching ideas did not pop out to me. It felt like Perry was trying too hard, or those pieces were just hard for me to read. (To be fair, I read the Greg Brown piece after three beers. Regardless, Perry’s weaving of Brown’s music and his own faith did not work for me.)

It had been a long time since I read Perry, so Danger was a welcome and enjoyable reintroduction to his writing. I need to track down more of his pile of writing.