Home Town

Tracy Kidder

This is a nonfiction book set in Northampton (that town should have another h) with excellent description of the town and its soul.  I have exerpted none of that.  Entertaining reading, even before the plot starts.

Kidder, Tracy.  Home Town.  New York: Random House, 1999.

Home Town excerpts:

Many of those jailed had little opportunity to live well; is justice served?

Human interactions hidden in a town.

Tolerating odd behavior.  Also, registry of motor vehicle employees feeling appreciated.

Just a note, the informant-police relationship well described in this book does not seem right: information for leniency.  It can’t be for good.

An Ada Compton scholar at Smith sends her son to buy mustard with food stamps.

Two probably innocent Irishmen were executed in Northampton in 1806.