In the 1990s, when he was a magazine freelancer hustling books off a card table at craft fairs, the mall, and out of his car trunk, Michael Perry self-published two books: Why They Killed Big Boy and Other Stories and Big Rigs Elvis, & the Grand Dragon Wayne. In 2005, after the success of Perry's book Population 485, Harper Perennial published Off Main Street, a collection of Perry's essays, magazine articles, and short fiction. Big Boy's Big Rig: The Leftovers contains the 11 essays from Why They Killed Big Boy and Big Rigs, Elvis & the Grand Dragon Wayne that weren't included in Off Main Street. This new collection includes fresh reflections and commentary written for each piece by Perry in 2020.