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The Jesus Cow - Michael Perry - 06/10/2015 - 7:00pm

The Jesus Cow

Community Room

For the first time, beloved Wisconsin author, Michael Perry, turns to fiction with The Jesus Cow, an affectionately skewed and big-hearted depiction of one miraculous bovine and the chaos it unleashes. “A wildly comic and deeply felt examination of faith, combining politics, scandal, farming, love, environmentalism and rural philosophy,” says Julie Schumacher, author of Dear Committee Members.

 

The uneventful world of Harley Jackson, low-key Wisconsin farmer, is about to change forever: 

 

“On Christmas Eve itself, the bachelor Harley Jackson stepped into his barn and beheld there illuminated in the straw a smallish newborn bull calf upon whose flank was borne the very image of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. “Well,” said Harley, “that’s trouble.”

 

Harley attempts to suppress the “miracle,” fails spectacularly, and the Jesus Cow goes viral. His peaceful, hometown is quickly overrun with pilgrims, grifters and clamoring media. Then a Hollywood agent jets in with plans to turn Harley’s farm into a neon-lit cheesehead version of Lourdes. The free-for-all is further complicated by Harley’s blooming affair with a truck-driving woman he met at the gas station—she joins a parade of unforgettable characters, from a lonely land developer in a star-spangled Hummer to a devout car-crushing Catholic widow and Harley’s cat-obsessed best friend Billy, who tries to pass off country music lyrics as original philosophy.

Michael Perry

Michael Perry

Michael Perry’s bestselling memoirs include Population 485, Truck: A Love Story, Coop, and Visiting Tom. His novel The Jesus Cow was published in 2015. Raised on a small Midwestern dairy farm, Perry put himself through nursing school while working on a ranch in Wyoming, then wound up writing by happy accident. He lives with his wife and two daughters in rural Wisconsin, where he serves on the local volunteer fire and rescue service. He hosts the nationally-syndicated “Tent Show Radio,” performs widely as a humorist, and tours with his band the Long Beds.

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