Home Town

Starred review from March 29, 1999
The small Massachusetts city of Northampton, tucked away in the Berkshires, makes a compelling case study of civilization's highest aspirations and its inevitable chaotic failures. Combining postcard prettiness and urban peril, Northampton, writes Kidder (Old Friends, etc.), "still preserves the old pattern of the New England township, a place with a full set of parts." That set includes apparent order (its population has changed little in 40 years), leafy neighborhoods, a thriving downtown and the elite Smith College. But through that stability run cracks: ragged housing projects, crumbling infrastructure and crime. Kidder finds Northampton capable of harboring "appalling abundance" in the private lives of its 30,000 citizens, and he taps the town's diversity selectively, profiling a single mother from California who studies at Smith, a crack-addled drug informant, a judge, a lawyer whose obsessive compulsive disorder occasions bizarre behavior and, at greatest length, a 33-year-old police sergeant who touches all their lives to varying degrees. As Kidder contrasts diverse newcomers' delight with the more seasoned, conflicted emotions of natives, his book turns into an examination of what holds those who stay, what draws those who come and what haunts those who leave. Kidder's vision combines the realistic detail of a documentary with the broad sweep and imagination of a 19th-century novel of the streets. His assessment of Northampton's unruly equilibrium is an apt description of this book: "somehow it works," and very well. BOMC selection; first serial to the Atlantic Monthly.

January 1, 1999
Small-town America as seen through events in Northampton, MA.

August 1, 1999
YA-Kidder presents a masterful guided tour of Northampton, MA, which dates back to the Puritans and then became a mill town during the Northeast's industrial boom. It suffered from urban blight during the blossoming of suburbia, but has recently managed a high-end renaissance. The author's goal is to show readers the community through the eyes of its citizens, particularly a young, straight-arrow police officer who sees not only the plush Northampton of yuppies and Smith College professors, but also the projects. Tommy seems to know everyone in town, from the hardworking female mayor to a drug dealer turned informant who teaches him the ins and outs of the crack business. There is also the town eccentric, a lawyer and real-estate mogul who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Teens will be especially interested in Laura Baumeister, a Smith College student in her 20s on a special scholarship. Together she and her young son must learn to adjust to life at the prestigious institution while maneuvering through the unforgiving welfare system. The lives of these and many other citizens intertwine to provide a moving picture of life in a small New England city.-Jane Drabkin, Chinn Park Regional Library, Prince William, VA

Copyright 1999 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 1999
Kidder, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, is captivated by all-American ordinariness, whether it's the denizens of an old folks home, a fifth-grade class, or a small New England town. Northampton, Massachusetts, is picture-perfect, steeped in history, home to Smith College, and long a bastion of Waspdom, yet it has evolved with the times, and plenty of conflict and tragedy rage behind its placid facade. Native son Tommy O'Connor, a brawny, shiny-pated policeman, is Kidder's guide to Northampton's hidden life and his primary subject. A cop at the top of his game, Tommy has his share of sorrows, most dramatically, his confusion over his best boyhood buddy's indictment for sexually abusing his seven-year-old daughter. Kidder accompanies Tommy on patrol for one year, gaining access to his private life and getting to know a diverse group of intriguing townspeople, including the pragmatic and implacable mayor Mary Ford, a judge whose leniency and conviviality upset the more straitlaced of the town's citizenry, and the book's two most compelling and triumphant characters: Alan Scheinman, who almost dies as a consequence of his raging obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Laura Baumeister, a single mother on welfare attending Smith on scholarship. Writing with stealthy omnipotence, Kidder not only chronicles his true-to-life characters' actions and conversations, he articulates their thoughts and emotions. The result is a remarkably detailed, accomplished, and empathic portrait of a town, from its most basic workings to its most shameful failings, absurd prejudices, and heroic achievements. Kidder's acutely observed, crisply written, and utterly absorbing documentary proves that there is nothing on this spinning earth more amazing and full of grace than everyday life. ((Reviewed March 1, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)