Visiting Tom: A Man, a Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace

Tuesdays with Morrie meets Shop Class as Soulcraft (with a dose of Parenting thrown in) as a middle-aged father of daughters finds guidance and inspiration in visits with his octogenarian, cannon-shooting neighbor"Somewhere between Garrison Keillor's idyllic-sweet Lake Wobegon and the narrow-mindedness of Sinclair Lewis's Main Street lies the reality of small-town life. This is where Michael Perry lives"-St. Paul Pioneer PressIn Population: 485, Michael Perry introduced us to New Auburn, Wisconsin, and the raging fires, smelt feeds, and car wrecks that brought him back to his hometown as a firefighter and EMT. Truck: A Love Story took us on a year-long ride as Perry struggled to fix his 1951 International pickup and sort out his love life; In Coop, he shared the joys and challenges of putting down roots in a ramshackle farmhouse, and taking on the responsibilities of thirty-seven acres and a new baby. Now, this acclaimed author returns with the tale of Tom Hartwig, an old-timer best known locally for building and firing homemade cannons.Toiling in a shop Perry describes as "an antique store stocked by Rube Goldberg, curated by Hunter Thompson, and rearranged by a small earthquake," Tom works from scratch to make everything from gag shovel handles to parts for quarter-million-dollar farm equipment (and-in small batches-contraband black powder for his homemade artillery). Famous for driving a team of oxen in local parades, he has an endless reservoir of stories dating back to the days of his prize Model A, and an anti-authoritarian streak refreshed daily by the four-lane interstate that was shoved through his front yard in 1965 and now dumps over 8 million vehicles past his kitchen window every year. And yet, Visiting Tom is dominated by the elderly man's sense of humor, and ultimately-when he and Perry converse over the kitchen table as husbands and the fathers of daughters-unvarnished tenderness, all related with Perry's trademark blend of humor, insight, and heart.