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In this "grand vision of a small place" ("People"), bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder creates a richly layered and unforgettable portrait of life in Northampton, Massachusetts, the quintessentially American hometown.
About the author
Tracy Kidder is an American nonfiction author and Pulitzer Prize winner. He studied at Harvard College and served in the United States Army.
Summary
In this fascinating book, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder takes us inside the everyday workings of Northampton, Massachusetts -- a place that seems to personify the typical American hometown. Kidder unveils the complex drama behind the seemingly ordinary lives of Northampton's residents. And out of these stories he creates a splendid, startling portrait of a town, in a narrative that gracefully travels among past and present, public and private, joy and sorrow.
A host of real people are alive in these pages: a tycoon with a crippling ailment; a criminal whom the place has beguiled, a genial and merciful judge, a single mother struggling to start a new life at Smith College; and, at the center, a policeman who patrols the streets of his beloved hometown with a stern yet endearing brand of morality -- and who is about to discover the peril of spending a whole life in one small place. Their stories take us behind the town's facades and reveal how individuals shape the social conscience of a community. Home Town is an unflinching yet lovingly rendered account of how a traditional American town endures and evolves at the turn of the millenniums.
Additional text
The New York Times In Tommy O'Connor, Kidder has given us that rare thing, a rich likeness of a breathing, complicated human being.
