Michael Perry — The Jesus Cow

This book is FUN! It’s full of wonderful, quirky characters and situations. It all takes place in a tiny town at the off-ramp of the interstate somewhere in Wisconsin. You have a quiet, unassuming farmer, Harley, left with only 15 acres of his father’s farm. There is a literary professor turned environmentalist, living at the bottom of an old water tower on Harley’s land. A greedy developer is trying to buy up Harley’s property so that he can take advantage of the location off the interstate. A woman who is a hard working scrap metal yard owner shares the intersection. Harley’s best friend, Billy, lives in a trailer on a corner of Harley’s land with a multitude of cats. And there is this woman who shows up in a red pickup truck that turns Harley’s head.

One of Harley’s cows has a calf on Christmas Eve at midnight with an image of Jesus on its side. You can only imagine the kind of stir this causes.

The book is a romp. It’s Michael Perry’s fist novel, although he’s a bestselling author of nonfiction books. I hope he writes more fiction.