This is my first Tracy Kidder read and I just moved to Amherst MA, and have a kid in Northampton MA.

Home Town is a memoir, woven-together stories of several inhabitants of Northampton Massachusetts from the 1950s through late 1990s. The main character is Tommy, a police officer and long time resident, but the story delves into stories of criminals, wealthy eccentrics, Smith College students, and others. It captures the small town feel in general and the Northampton vibe specifically, very very well. It's easy to read, mild, enjoyable. But it is too long. I was pretty tired of the characters by the end and there were portions I think could have been shortened or skipped as they just dragged on, especially in the absence of any significant plot. ( )

A detailed, slow-paced story of a few Northampton residents: police officer Tommy O'Connor, Judge Mike Ryan, Ada Comstock scholar Laura, informant Frankie, and Alan, a lawyer with OCD. Some of their stories touch, but aren't deeply woven together; the main event is Tommy's childhood friend and fellow police officer's conviction of child abuse, but even this is somewhat muted. Imagine SAY NOTHING or DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY without any momentum.

Quotes

If you do all your growing up in the same small place, you don't shed identities. You accumulate them. (page 1)

"Do the right thing" and "do your job": those were [Tommy O'Connor's] categorical imperatives. (51)

Only halfway to the vernal equinox, and already a general mood of exhaustion had seemed to settle over the town, the kind of exhaustion that comes from waiting for an end that looks too far away. (150)

To be poor on welfare was to be poor publicly. It had never occurred to [Laura] before that privacy and money were inextricably connected. (273)

She'd always found it difficult to tell the difference between a thing done to her and a thing she'd helped to bring upon herself. (283)

...[Judge Ryan] prefers the local and native, people who know the town well, and, being known by it, are held accountable for what they do here. Newcomers have brought many improvements, he thinks, but newcomers tend to mistake what they see in the foreground for the place itself, as if they can't imagine Northampton without themselves in it. His town needs its natives, he thinks, to keep it continuous. (333) ( )

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/7424507

Gave up on p. 56 for child sexual abuse. Did not expect that, had been hoping all the anecdotes about drug users to that point were as bad as it was going to get. Still, I do like Kidder and will try again with another - maybe Mountains or Machine next.

Northampton is a small town in western Massachusetts with a lot of history and unique local favor. Tracy Kidder takes you through the town in the '90s when its Main Street shops were burgeoning and there was an influx of people from outside joining the lifelong "townies." He tells the story of Tommy O'Connor, who lived in town all his life and became a cop seeing the seedier side of town, Judge W. Michael Ryan of the District Court, scholarship student at Smith Laura Baumeister and more.

These compelling snapshots tell a sort of mosaic of the town of Northampton. Tommy O'Connor's story is essentially the one that connects all the dots, and the other people involved have at least some relationship with him when first introduced, though Kidder gives us more of their story than Tommy could have known from their interactions. Though he's never present as an "I," Kidder's presence is felt as the listening ear for Tommy in the cop car or Alan Scheinman explaining how OCD took over his life. Interspersed in these vignettes are stories from the history of the town, and as a result of the United States, and a glimpse of a small town still existing in today's busy society. The book is about fifteen years old, but I could recognize the town that I've visited several times myself in its pages. ( )