Million Billion

In this fresh collection of "Roughneck Grace" columns, New York Times bestselling author and humorist Michael Perry reinforces, his reputation, as a writer navigating between the transcendent ("The conga line was no longer a line, but rather a fluid knot of nearly a thousand happy children winding in and around itself throughout the aisles of the auditorium while Cyril Paul and the Calypso Monarchs played from the stage."), the quotidian ("Outside my window the June evening is winding down and the sunlight is, goldening and the shadows are winning the lawn and the birdsongs are of the settling sort."), and the goofy ("I have never been hungover in my life and I'm not saying that cat was, but this was my first thought, and I went with it, imagining him down at the kitty tavern 'til all hours, knocking back miniature beers and teensy chasers, maybe purring at some lady kitty and nudging the catnip chews her way until he remembered he'd been fixed, at which point he, retreated with his beer to the jukebox, where he, slumped into more serious drinking, his pupils sad and wide in the barroom gloom, his tail limp."). Whether putting himself on roller skates for his daughter's birthday, fixing the chicken fence, or celebrating St. Jude ("the patron saint of fools"), Perry writes with a big heart from a small place.