Michael Perry  3:33  

Well, I remember how I discovered him very clearly. I had a kidney stone. It was my first kidney stone. I wound up in the emergency room as a freelance writer and was self-insured. I was on the gurney in the ER, thinking, “When I go home, I’d be paying for this.” 

At that time, I was doing a lot of writing for Men’s Health magazine. I thought, “Hey, maybe they could use an essay on what it’s like to have a kidney stone.” 

From the ER, I called my editor and said, “Hey, I’m in the emergency room with a kidney stone.” And he said, “Why did you call me?” I said, “Well, maybe we could write an article on this.” And he said, “Oh that sounds okay.” And I said, “Well, great news for me.” 

And then, to shorten that story, I did end up writing a piece and what they paid me for the piece, I believe came within a couple hundred bucks to the deductible. I felt like I broke even on my kidney stone. 

But in the process of writing the piece, I wrote my first person stuff. I also did research. I went to the Medical Library. I pulled a lot of articles about kidney stones and renal calculi. I actually have a nursing degree. That was my education. I have a bachelor’s in nursing.

I went to the local hospital library and pulled all that information. You know how when you read medical research, the doctors or the researchers that are writing it, they really in their heart of hearts want to be writers. They always put the cool little anecdote thing in the abstract up at the top. 

The cool little anecdote thing that just kept recurring was this reference to this 16th century French philosopher and essayist, Montaigne. Here I am. I’m a guy at that point who was making my living basically by writing essays, but I do not have a literary background.

I’m a farm kid. I worked as a cowboy. I got a nursing degree and very accidentally, wound up writing. I should have known who he was, but I didn’t. It turns out, as you said, there’s a little quibbling here. He basically invented the essay form. 

If he hadn’t invented the essay form, I wouldn’t be making a living. I thought, “Well, this Montaigne guy keeps popping up.” I looked into him. I found out that he was this philosopher, who had had a kidney stone. 

And so, I thought, “Well, I better read the essay that he wrote about his kidney stones.” I started reading the pieces he did on kidney stones. And then, quite naturally wound up drifting off into the other stuff. Part of it was, as you said, there was just everything. 

I mean, I came to it with this preconception: Philosopher, capital P. It’s going to be really heavy. But all of a sudden, you mentioned a lot of the good ones. I mean, on the one hand, he’ll be writing about faith, hope, and humanity. 

And then, he turned around and wrote an entire essay on thumbs. He wrote an entire essay on the dangers of coaches. By that, I mean, the ones with wheels, not the ones with ugly shorts and a whistle. 

It was this moment where I realized, “Oh, well! If this is philosophy, I’ll have some more.” And then, also, you relate to him because he really had no filter at that point. That is how I came to him. It was very specifically through a kidney stone.

Sean Murray  6:36  

Your resourcefulness in calling your editor is just amazing. I understand it’s quite painful to go through a kidney stone. In reading Montaigne, he talks about the pain quite a bit. They didn’t have any painkiller or anything back then either.

It also speaks to this surprise that many people have when they originally confront Montaigne. They’re surprised that he’s very accessible. He talks about very mundane, humanistic experiences. 

My original preconceived notion of Montaigne is stuffy academic. I would probably not enjoy reading him. It was just the opposite. It’s great that you had the same experience. You shared that in your book with so many wonderful anecdotes. 

One thing that people tend to do when they read Montaigne is that they somehow see themselves in him. You talked about that in the book. Can you kind of elaborate on that? Did you see that, too?

Michael Perry  7:29  

I did, but I also arrived at an opposing conclusion. First of all, that is absolutely the appeal of Montaigne. Here I am. I’m originally a farm kid from Northern Wisconsin. I grew up in a poor family. I go to great pains to *inaudible*. I never went to bed hungry. I know I was loved. Those are the two greatest privileges in the world.

But I grew up on a working farm. It was a big deal to go to town once a year to buy a pair of tennis shoes. Here’s this nobleman. He was born with the money. He had money. He lived in a castle. Like you said, I write in a little room in my garage overlooking my pig pen. Montaigne wrote in a castle tower on the castle grounds that his family handed down. 

On the one hand, we’re nothing alike. I mean, he was being trained to speak Latin at the age of two. He went to university when he was 14. He was trained in the law. He was a lawyer. He was a mayor. He was a soldier. In many ways, I’m nothing like him. And yet, you constantly go, “Oh, my gosh! That’s me.” 

One of my very favorite things about Montaigne was the day I read the passage where he said, “I can’t remember anything I read.” I write for a living. I read voraciously. I have for years. One of my greatest frustrations is that I can’t quote passages. I don’t remember where I read stuff. I have to go back and find it. 

Here’s this guy who invented the essay form. I really have a hard time remembering things. You relate to that. There’s another thing in the book, which I talked about. There’s danger in only cherry-picking the areas where you go, “Oh, that’s just like me.” It is equally important to focus on those areas where you’re different and ask yourself, “Why?” 

You can do that with Montaigne, too. For me, it’s the obvious things. I’m not a nobleman. There are pros and cons there. I think you can spend too much time just affirming everything that you believe or feel. 

On the other hand, there’s a really tough chapter in there. At least, it was tough for me to write. It’s called “Roughneck Intersectionality.” That whole chapter is about me, via Montaigne, confronting things that I don’t agree with him on, or even those I don’t agree with other people in the world on. That’s just as important.

Sean Murray  9:37  

Absolutely. I think one of the appeals of Montaigne is that he does tend to stretch the reader in some ways. He will push you. In other ways, he’s encouraging the reader to push back. Another thing that normally strikes a reader when you read Montaigne is this lack of dogma.

You don’t get what you might typically think you would get in a philosopher, or what we tend to get in philosophers. It is a system of thought that is coming at you with a lot of confidence. This is how the world is. It’s pretty much the opposite with Montaigne. 

There’s this saying, which you talked about in your book. It is a theme with Montaigne, where he says things like, “I could be wrong.” *inaudible* become the king of qualifiers, or something like that. 

There’s another phrase that he comes back to again and again, which is where he’s known for. It is, “What do I know?” Can you talk a little bit about that aspect of Montaigne?

Michael Perry  10:28  

That has only come to appeal to me more over time about him. It is particular to our time. I think so many of us are so hungry for a conversation, where I’m neither trying to convince or be convinced. I would just like to learn. 

The dedication to the book says, “For those willing to approach conversation with something less than a steamroller.” “Dude, just give me some air. Let’s talk.” 

I still live in the rural, relatively rough neck area, where I was raised. Over time, I’ve come to think differently on some things than some of my neighbors. But on a very fundamental level, like, if my snow plow breaks, or if I’m gone, and I need someone to feed my chickens, I must maintain, if you will, a dialogue with them. I don’t have the luxury of writing them off. 

You come back to Montaigne constantly, where you’re saying, “Well, here’s what I think. But I could be wrong.” 

Honestly, 48 hours ago, I had a tough discussion with my neighbor. We were coming from very opposite sides. We talked about it. I think we’re probably both in the same place, but we know a little more about each other now. That’s the thing. Montaigne was just interested in knowing more about himself, but equally those around him.

Sean Murray  11:45  

I agree with you on that, Michael. Right now, we think that we have a divided America. But if we look at the context of Montaigne’s writing, he was writing at a time when in French culture and society, there was a massive civil war between Catholics and Protestants. It was very bitter and very violent at times. 

Yet, he took the opposite approach of not being dogmatic. He was known as not being on really one side or the other. He was someone who was in the middle, which could have been a dangerous place for him. I think there might be something about the times that he came up in and how he came to this conclusion. There’s something we can all learn from that, too.

Michael Perry  12:30  

It’s tricky being in that middle ground. I’m often studying myself and reflecting on Montaigne for that very purpose. Sometimes, I worry that I’m cowardly. I should have been more outspoken about this thing or that thing. 

Way back, I wrote a book called, “Population 45,” which was about being in the fire department in my hometown and making ambulance calls. I always say that when I left my hometown, I was a farm boy, a good student, and a fair defensive end. 

I returned 12 years later as a long-haired writer with soft hands and a nursing degree. There’s a certain amount of street cred to recover with some of my buddies. I have a chapter in that book called, “My People,” which I started talking about in those 12 years. 

When I came back, I wasn’t the same guy I used to be. I didn’t think the same about some of the things I was very certain about back in the first 18 years that I lived in that place. That’s still where I am. 

That chapter in the Montaigne book called “Roughneck Intersectionality,” is about where my gut is or where my knee jerk is. It’s also about where my head is after going through experiences that suggest there are other ways to look at the world. Even more importantly, there are other people that experience that same world differently.

Sean Murray  13:39  

We can all benefit from having more empathy or understanding– a way to look at the world through other people’s eyes. We can have some empathy for their perspective as well. That’s something that you take away from reading Montaigne.

He was interested in his own views, but he also was very curious about the perspective of others. He became very non-judgmental. I think that’s one thing that I took away from reading him. It is trying to be less judgmental of those around me and other perspectives that I come into contact with.

Michael Perry  14:11  

One of the things that I noticed is that I grew up with all these wonderful mentors. I would never call them that to their face, but that’s what they were. I’m now 56. I had to ask my kids the other day to tell me how old I was. That window of time, it’s not that you don’t want to admit it. You just don’t remember or care. But I’m 56. 

One of the things that’s been a recurring theme in my writing, and it’s a huge part of the Montaigne book is that I watched many of my mentors hit my age. They seem to take one of two paths. They either became very open to the idea of what was changing, how to take that in, and how to navigate it, or they became very bitter and brittle and just dug their heels in. They don’t want any change. 

I just think Montaigne is helping me take that more open path. Let me be very clear. I’m not talking about sacrificing your morals or your principles. I’m not talking about trying to hang out and be hip with the kids. I think that’s a huge mistake. 

I mean, I’m a parent. In our house, we listen to the children. We speak to them like adults. We try to have conversations, but you know what? The grown-ups are still in charge. 

I do want to be open to young, fresh, and new ways of thinking, and even to new ways of acting and perceiving the world that I thought I understood. Montaigne’s really helpful in empathy, thoughtfulness, and reflection.

Sean Murray  15:33  

You talk about in the book this idea of the importance of responding to change with change. One should not respond by proverbially putting our head in the sand, or digging in, or solidifying our positions. Montaigne took this attitude of curiosity and openness to the world. It’s refreshing and inspiring.

Michael Perry  15:55  

For me, the example that I often use, and this isn’t something that’s necessarily in the book. I do have a chapter on aesthetics. I was this roughneck kid. I did a ton of reading, when I was a kid. But I was by no means an aesthete. I was driving a pickup truck, deer hunting, and football playing. I was sort of a small town kid.

It was fairly late into later college, when I really started to go to poetry readings and getting into poetry. It turns out, I was a really bad poet. It’s really hard to make a living as a poet. I kind of veered off into prose, but there’s this whole idea with poetry. I’m thinking of Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet.

I love his work. And so often, people will tell me, “Well, I just don’t get it.” I go, “Well, that’s the first mistake. Just read it. Just listen to it. Feel how you react to those words.” Dylan Thomas himself said, “I choose words for their taste over their meaning.”

I think that’s a wonderful way of looking at writing, especially in first drafts. That sort of thing. That’s what I’m kind of trying to get at with this Montaigne book. I think that is what Montaigne was trying to get at. Just be open to the idea. It doesn’t mean that you’ve got to read Dylan Thomas everyday. It doesn’t mean that you all of a sudden have to become a poet. 

I wrote that book, “Population 45.” I turned it into a play. We took it on a tour around the state of Wisconsin. One of the things I loved in that play is that it involves volunteer firefighters. We would have sold out in theaters around the state. Small theaters, let me just say. I don’t want to sound like I’m boasting. 

We’d have sold out theaters, but there would always be a contingent of who you would expect to be coming to the theater. But there were always some satin firefighter jackets, or some EMT logos. Those folks would come up to me afterwards and say, “I haven’t been to a play in 20 years. I’ve never been to a play.” 

I don’t need them to start going to plays every week. I was just so happy that they came to that one. And now they experienced it, they can do with that experience what they will. I think that, again, that’s part of Montaigne. It’s not saying, “Well, now that you tasted this thing, you have to love it.” No, you just needed to taste it. You make your own decision.

Sean Murray  17:56  

There’s another theme that Montaigne takes up that you talked about in the book. I think Montaigne even changes his view on this over the course of the book. It is this idea of how to confront death. The essays were sort of written over time. We should probably mention that they were written over a long period of time.

Michael Perry  18:13  

It was amended. He mended and edited it. The real academicians can tell you all the different versions: the A, B, C, D, and all that stuff. It’s fascinating. I have no capacity for it. But speaking of things you taste, and then say, “Well, I’m going to leave that to someone else.”

If my memory serves me, one of the reasons I related to Montaigne is that I kind of made this art, too. He started out as the stoic about death. You have to learn to face death without emotion, or fear, or anything. And then, he just slowly migrated to another position, which is more an acknowledgment of it.

For me, one thing that helped me over time is that I’ve volunteered as an EMT. I was a first responder for 32 years now. I don’t feel that I have any bravado about it. It is what it is, but you do confront death on a regular basis. You confront tragedy. You very quickly come to understand how little control you have. 

Montaigne had his own brush with death when he was knocked unconscious from a horse, and nearly died. One of the things that working closely with death does for you is I think about death every day. Montaigne pondered death all the time. 

People say well, “That’s McCobb. That’s creepy.” I go, “No, not at all. It’s a handshake sort of a thing.” It’s not that you’re going, “Oh, I’m going to die. I’m going to die.” It’s like, when you do die, you look at death, and you go, “I figured you’re common.”

Sean Murray  19:34  

Yeah, it’s building a little familiarity. You have that grace, that composure, and that acceptance.

Michael Perry  19:40  

And again, he made that migration. I’m past that, too. He also came to realize, and I too, in observing actual death, that you may have this image of you approaching death stoically. But the truth is, you don’t know how it’s going to happen. You have no idea how you’re going to react. The idea of being stoic in the face of death is probably a misplaced priority. It is what he came to feel.

Sean Murray  20:02  

I think there’s also an aspect of enjoying every day when you do sort of shake hands with the Grim Reaper everyday, or however you put it in the book. It is a reminder that each day is a gift. It’s another step on your human journey. It’s another experience. It’s another opportunity or possibility for curiosity to get to know your neighbors, to build social relationships, or to read. 

Montaigne loved to drink some wine and hang out with friends. He sort of celebrates this stuff along the way, as well. He talks about these bigger issues. You talked about this in the book. He’s got this “highbrow/lowbrow.”  I think you embody this in many ways too, for being a writer on a farm, writing philosophy and “Barn Boots.” 

Michael Perry  20:48  

I’m so glad we got here. I have the chapter where I opened with the scene where my wife and I took our daughters to a Shakespeare Festival. And then within 48 hours, I took my daughters to a little local thing here called “Augusta Bean and Bacon Days,” and we went to the demolition derby. 

My point to my daughters was: “Did you notice what a great time we had at both events? Culture can be consumed on a sliding scale.” It’s fun up at the high end. It’s a lot of fun down there to Grizzy Ann, too. 

I also remember my daughters as we left the demolition derby. We’re getting out on the road, and they’re trapped, so they got to listen to me. I said, “You know, when Shakespeare wrote those plays, they had a place called the pit. You could pay a penny, eat peanuts, drink beer, and yell at the actors while the play was going on.” 

I said, “This wasn’t always some esoteric, highbrow thing. This was for everybody. The people at the demolition derby back in those days would have been at the play.” This gets back to what I talked about with “My People,” “Roughneck” from “Population 45”, and the “Roughneck Intersectionality” chapter in the Montaigne book. I’m always trying to have those different spectrums or different levels of the sliding scale intersect. 

I want to make this clear, too. It’s not about me being wise, or being a good person because I enjoy dirt tracks, stuck car race, and poetry readings. It’s that I feel really lucky and fortunate that I stumbled into a life where I know people who enjoy both. We enjoy them together. 

Sean Murray  22:20  

Exactly. That’s one of the things that I enjoy about reading Montaigne. There’s a delight in moving from experience to experience. There’s another aspect of Montaigne’s life that I think I’d like to talk about. It is the fact that he wrote during the plague, especially given that we’re going through this COVID experience.

The plague arrived in his town. He lived near Bordeaux. He was the mayor of Bordeaux for a while. He fled. He picked up his family. He had the means to flee. A lot of the people around him, such as the peasants and people of poor means could not flee. 

What do you think about his experience there? What can we take away from it?

Michael Perry  22:59  

You do remind me of something, which may be more relevant to your previous question. When he was a child, his father, who was a very wealthy nobleman chose for his godparents. They were peasants. He sent Montaigne to live with them for the first few years of his life. 

That informed his thinking for the rest of his life. When he was a lawyer, he helped put together cases, and what he took from that was that if you don’t have money, you don’t have justice. That’s a pretty modern thought. At least, we think of it as such. Of course, it’s not a modern thought.

That’s one of those moments where he surprises you, or he reminds you that there’s nothing new under the sun. When I think of him during the plague, picking up to leave, there’s no question that he was a man of privilege. I think he understood that. 

I know that he was not a man of “blithe privilege.” I guess that’s how I would put it. I think I have a passage in that book about the “blithe riche.” It’s like, “I’m fine with you if you’re rich, but just don’t act like it’s nothing.” 

I can’t imagine that when he left, he didn’t do it while being conscious of the fact that he was availing himself of privilege. That too feeds back into something we were talking about previously. It reminded me of one of the things he’s helped me with. I write about gratitude a lot. I wrote an essay on gratitude.

One of the things that the past couple of years have done for me is to teach me that gratitude is not always the “Oh, yay! Celebrate!” No. One of the most important forms of gratitude, I think, is when you learn to acknowledge and express gratitude, even when you’re not happy, or even when things aren’t going well. 

For me, I’m doing fine. We’re basically a small business. It’s just our family. I write stuff, and we try to sell it. About half of our income comes from me being on the road. That shut down. It is still shut down. 

The last six months, there have been some days that weren’t great, but I’m still able to look around thinking, “Yeah, but I have a place to live. I have a freezer full of food. I’ve got a back forty full of venison if it really comes to that.” 

Those are the Montaigne moments where you go, “Yeah, just consider your privilege and apply it.” It doesn’t mean that you’ve got to get rid of everything, dress up in sackcloth and ashes. But at least, nod to your fortune.

Sean Murray  25:21  

I definitely took away a very similar message from Montaigne. He didn’t consider himself as a moral exemplar. He didn’t put himself out there as some kind of pinnacle of morality. In fact, he said that his morality was exemplary enough if you take its instruction in reverse. I love his humor.

If he does whatever the opposite of whatever he did, you might live a moral life. It kind of speaks to his humor. But what he did was document from a very objective perspective how people reacted and acted in certain situations. Maybe I’ll just bring up one if we could talk about it. It is one of my favorite essays called, “Of Cannibals.” 

It’s about his experience of meeting some natives from Brazil. The French had a colony in Brazil at that time. Some of the natives came over. He got to meet them. They were, I believe, in the court of the King of France. He was able to interview them.

He wrote a wonderful essay about this culture where he really shines a light on Western Europe’s morality at the time. This is the morality of these “cannibals.” Do you want to talk about that?

Michael Perry  26:32  

Well, it’s one of the most powerful pieces I think he’s written. It also talks about things that just have modern day relevance. I should say, “contemporary relevance.” He kind of flips the standard. He goes along with the idea that these folks, at least to the English equivalent of his word, “savages” because they’re cannibals. But then, he flips it.

He starts talking about what the Protestants and Catholics are doing to each other, but they’re doing it with nice clothes. They’re doing it within the law and within a certain framework of so-called civilization. 

He just does a lovely job of flipping the argument. I was reminded in the intro to your question. There’s an entire chapter in my Montaigne book called, “Shame.” It comes from that bit about Montaigne saying, “Hey, don’t look to me. I’m talking about this stuff, but I’m trying to learn. I’m not telling you.” 

People will say nice things to me about my writing, such as, “That was beautiful. I love how you compose this or that.” I always feel compelled to say, “Yeah, but just please don’t forget that on any given Tuesday, I’m a 50% successful dad. I didn’t make the mark as a husband. My wife stepped over my dirty socks for the 15th time.” That’s just the fun stuff, right? 

I have a decent audience. If I hustle, I can make a living. That’s the shorthand. I’m not famous. I don’t sell millions, but I sell enough. If I hustle, I can make a living. Several of my books are of a certain genre. They’re nonfiction. They have humor and heart. They’re all from my heart. 

When I went to write this book and signed the contract, I told my editor that about half of my audience will not like this book. I was right. At least that’s what the sales indicate. But here’s what fascinates me. It was not since my first book, “Population 45.” Montaigne is my 12th book or so. Not since my first book, have I written a book for which I have received so much heartfelt correspondence– emails, letters, notes, and comments.

It just shows you that if you write a book that contains a chapter called, “Shame,” and you write about some things that people really would rather not hear about you, let alone themselves, you’re going to lose part of your audience; but you’re going to connect on a level with some readers that you never expected. 

And now, we’re back to Montaigne. Here, I can read the work of a nobleman who retired to his castle at 38, and yet go, “Yeah man, that’s me for better or worse.”

Sean Murray  28:59  

One of the things I love about your book is that you model Montaigne. You don’t necessarily talk about it directly. But as you’re reading the book, if you read Montaigne, you start to realize what you’re doing is putting a little modern spin on Montaigne in some ways.

You’re taking the Montaigne playbook. You’re taking Montaigne’s “magnifying glass” that he points at his own life. You start pointing it at your own modern life, which a modern reader can relate to. I certainly enjoyed that. What it did is it brought Montaigne more from the 16th century into the 21st century.

Michael Perry  29:35  

I really appreciate that because that was my general intent. I don’t have a big detailed plan when I write a book. I truly did start with me sitting in a deer stand out in the woods, reading Montaigne on my iPhone. 

I was just thinking, “Oh, well. There are people in academia who have built entire careers out of parsing one paragraph of Montaigne, and here I am, sitting in camo under a pine tree. Why think the world should hear what I have to say about this?” But I also try to never forget. I’m not always successful at this, by the way. I always try to remember. 

There’s a writer named Darcy Frey. He’s probably best known for his article called “Pushing Tin,” which became a movie. I believe it was with Billy Bob Thornton. 

I also think that he wrote a basketball book. I want to say that it was “The Last Shot,” but I might be confusing my basketball books. I saw him speak one time. He talked about the tricky business of writing in the first person, which is writing about yourself.

It can quickly go wrong. Why should anybody care about what I have to say? But Darcy Frey said, “Anytime you type the word, capital ‘I,’ the letter, capital ‘I,’ it should be transparent. It should not be a means of talking about yourself. It should be a means of someone being able to look through you and see something else.” 

And so, I hope in writing about Montaigne, that I was able to do that. I hope they could look through my foibles. I talked about feeding the chickens. And then, I tried to take that through Montaigne.

Sean Murray  30:58  

There is that universalism of Montaigne, even though he’s writing through the first person. The overwhelming appeal of his writing is sort of amazing when you step into it and start reading it. 

Towards the end of the book, you come to this profound conclusion. It’s a beautiful passage. You write: “Through the examination of my imperfections, I can better serve my obligations to others.” That’s sort of the big takeaway that you got from Montaigne. 

I just want to point out that it’s true. You talk about imperfections in your book, but they’re also very funny. You make it fun along the way to read, but it’s also very serious. Can you talk about that conclusion because I related to that, too?

Michael Perry  31:46  

I come from, again, that very blue collar background. If you can’t stack it or stack with it, it doesn’t count. “I’ve struggled” is too dramatic, but I’ll use it for sure. I’ve struggled, even as I’ve made a living supporting my family by writing, typing, putting books together, and writing essays. 

I’ve always had this little twinge of guilt that it’s not real work. My brother’s a logger. What he got up and did today, I just can’t compare to that. I have these soft hands. But the truth is, I’ve worked really hard at it. 

I also come to this. I always have said, “I’m a writer with a small ‘w.’” Nobody asked me to do this. Nobody asked me to share my wisdom. I just got into it by accident. I tried to figure out how to make a living. I put art in there, whenever I can. My muse is a guy named Jim. He sits in the swivel chair, nine miles up the road from me at the Chetek State Bank. He holds my mortgage.

If I [don’t] write another book, he takes my house away. It’s a symbiotic relationship, but nonetheless, in doing this, in writing this Montaigne book, there’s this little part of me that says, “You do have some responsibility to not just try to write a book that’s entertaining, but to take what you’ve just written seriously and look at yourself.” I would say, “I see my biggest project first thing every morning, when I look in the mirror.” Signs are not always good. 

I have a chapter in there about my marriage. One of the things I’ve always loved about my wife from day one, even when she met me, I was already writing books, she hadn’t read my books. She still doesn’t read my books. I have learned, however, that if you write about your wife, you should let her read those passages to fact check and to see if you’re going to be allowed back in the house. 

I do share passages that really involve her. I wrote that marriage chapter. It’s an honest chapter. I remember taking the rough draft up to her, saying, “You probably ought to read this one.” She read it. And when she handed it back to me, she just said, “Yeah, pretty much it.” 

I was expecting her to go, “Oh no, honey.” [But] she was like, “Yup.” There’s an example where I go, “Well, if I took the time to write that chapter for the book, I really truly should try to apply this to myself.” Ultimately, that’s what Montaigne does for me. That’s a form of self-examination. We all need it. It is kind of a fun way to do it. He’s a funny guy, too. 

The other wonderful thing about him is if you pick up a copy of “The Essays,” it’s daunting. It’s a brick. Don’t worry about it because the good news is you can drop it on the floor, and wherever it opens, just start reading it. It’s one of those books.

Sean Murray  34:15  

Yeah, you don’t have to read it cover to cover. In each essay, I should probably mention that you could look at an essay that maybe, say “Of Education,” “Of Smells,” “Of Names,” “Of Cruelty,” “Of Thumbs,” or “Of Diversions.” You might often find that it has almost nothing to do with the title. He’s going off on another tangent somewhere, but it’ll be a fun journey. It’s just delightful. 

I really hope that those in the audience that are interested in Montaigne will pick up and read a copy of Montaigne, and “Montaigne in Barn Boots” as just kind of a companion piece. It could be a modern look at Montaigne and another view from not a tower in Bordeaux, but above a garage in Wisconsin. You can still have some fun reading it.

Michael Perry  35:08  

Right now, I can see the chickens.

Sean Murray  35:11  

Michael, this has just been a wonderful conversation. Where can people find out more about you and your writing?

Michael Perry  35:17  

The very best place to start is just go to sneezingcow.com. That’s the URL for my website, all my social media platforms, and my worldwide multimedia.

Sean Murray  35:29  

All right. Well, thank you for being on The Good Life.

Michael Perry  35:32  

Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

Outro  35:34  

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