Rating: 
Summary: The Facts, Sir, (Not) Just the Facts
Review: Tracy Kidder's engaging books are, without exception, "great reads." If they continue to be billed as nonfiction, however, he and his publishers will need to correct page 126 of Home Town to remain credible in my book. St. Peter never said, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." St. Paul may have, in his Letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 13, Verse 2. It makes one wonder what else is misquoted. I'm disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Somewhat good, but boring at times
Review: I enjoyed this book for the most part because I graduated from UMASS in Amherst several years ago. It was fun to read about places I've been to. However, some of the things that Tommy O'Connor did bothered me, such as his attitude towards teenagers hanging out in the park. He seemed to be one of those cops who just like to harass kids, and he's also hard line on any drug offenses, while I think that our drug policies are too punitive in this country. I enjoyed reading about Alan and Laura. I would have liked to have read more about Laura in particular. I found her story fascinating. Sometimes I put the book down for awhile, instead of reading it straight through, because some parts were boring and repetitive. I agree with some of the reviewers that it would have been important to interview or follow the story of a gay or lesbian resident. It's strange to me that he said in the back of the book, in the reader's guide, that he didn't meet any gay people that he wanted to write about, or something like that. I liked reading about O'Connor's problems with his friend Rick and his case, and about his childhood and family relationships. I'm not so interested in police work so maybe that's why I found it boring at times. I couldn't tell if Kidder supported the old time Northampton people or the newer, more liberal ones, but it seems like he was on O'Connor's side most of the time. I think I wouldn't be so sympathetic to any cop's point of view, so that's why this book wasn't as interesting to me as I thought it would be.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting account of small town America
Review: Northhampton sounds like a fascinating place in the eyes of the author and I liked some (not all) of the characters he chose to portray.Following a small town cop was an excellent anchor for the book. I found the policeman to be responsible, humorous and a typical local who was far from worldly because he knew no other world. I also enjoyed following Laura, the single parent college student, who was struggling to find her way in the world. Kidder could've written more about her. I absolutely got sick and tired of Alan, his obsessive-compulsive disorder and the details of his trips to strip bars. Worse than that, however, was the play-by-play of his obsession with a stripper who may or may not have liked the guy. Eventually, we never really come to any conclusion on what's going on with Alan's life. I could've read much less about Alan, like about 100 pages less. Kidder also could've done more with the college, as in professors, students, etc. It is the foundation of the town. I enjoy Kidder's storytelling abilities and writing styles, but this book needed a sharper editor. Some of the things Kidder gets hooked on were needless, in my opinion. Overall, I did think it was a fine book and it makes me want to read more of Kidder's work. Good solid work, but not worthy of a five-star rating.
Rating:
Summary: Home Town Redux
Review: I left Northampton 42 years ago, but I recognized the place and knew some of the people. Kidder's writing and descriptions kept me interested and wanting more from the beginning to the end. I shared this book with relatives and friends. Fine job.
Rating: 
Summary: A Treasure that anyone can relate to
Review: I just finished reading Hometown and oved it. Everthing about it was correct and concise. Kidder wowed his readers agian. It makes me feel good as a Northampton citizen that are UTOPIAN city is being reconized.
Rating: 
Summary: Kidder seems to have been just passing through.
Review: For almost all of its 400+ pages, "Home Town" is a detached view of Northampton, MA. While Kidder provides some interesting history about the town, his concentration on the lives of several individuals leaves the reader with little knowledge about the heart and soul of the community today. Far too many pages are devoted to the real estate tycoon recovering from OCD, with seemingly endless (and unnecessary) passages of him talking about his approach to women. Similarly, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the Smith College student on welfare. What about the shopkeepers? The town council? The stores? The cafes? Housewives? A cross section of the high school and college students? We see the town mostly front the perspective of Tommy O'Connor's police cruiser. But did Kidder ever take a walk down the main street? After 400 pages, I still don't really know what daily life in this town is like. The stories and people in Kidder's focus could really apply anywhere. Finally, there is no resolution. For all of the focus on several individuals, Kidder leaves almost all of them in suspended animation. "Home Town" could have been so much more if Kidder had gotten out of the police car, walked the streets, and shown us a greater variety of Northampton's population. "Home Town" needed the strong guidance of an editor.
Rating:
Summary: Loved The Writing, Didn't Recognize The Town...
Review: I loved this book - read it cover to cover in 3 days. The characters were beautifully portrayed,sympathetically but truthfully. By the end of the book, I felt like they were friends I had hung out with long time, long enough to know why they did the things they did (the town itself being one of these characters). I think that's part of the genius of this book: it reminds us that beneath the surface of everyone we meet, there's a heartbreaking, hilarious, ironic, mysterious morality play taking place. (Of course, you'd go insane if you actually tried to unravel all these little threads of existance running through your everyday life, so for mental health reasons, sometimes it's better to just swear quietly under your breath at that guy that cuts in front of you in the supermarket checkout line and move on...). Having grown up in a town very close to Northampton my impressions of it are very different from the book's portrayal, but I loved being able to see it from a whole different angle. It was like sitting through the eulogy of someone I thought I knew well, and finding out all these details I never imagined. You see, the Northamton I know is a place occupied mostly by people who have moved away from their own hometowns. And I think this accounts for most of the wierdness you find there - its much easier to struggle with becoming yourself when you live 1000 miles away from where no matter what you do, you'll always be the shy kid with braces in the back row of study hall. And it also accounts, I think, for the very open gay community here. The lack of a portrayal of the gay community in Northamton was for me the thing that made it most unrecognizable in the book. In the valley, Northamton and gay are pretty much synonymous to anyone growing up here. Which is why you don't find a lot of locally grown gays marching in the Coming Out parade. You really don't want Auntie Sue seeing you on the local news carrying that "Lesbians Rule" banner. Northamton can also be a place of militant political and "spiritual" correctness (there are probably as many Solstice parties as there are Christmas parties in the area). A place where you actually feel a little guilty wearing a leather jacket or eating a cheeseburger. (Or wearing lipstick or shaving your legs if you're lesbian...). There is wonderful energy in Northampton, a wonderful mixture of cultures and beliefs but at the same time there is a feeling that in order to fit in, you have to not fit, if that makes any sense. It is a great place to visit, but it is also nice to leave (like when you feel both relief and sadness that th weekend visit with your hyperactive 6 year old nephew is coming to an end). To me, Northamton is kind of like Provincetown, but with a bad case of PMS.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable page turner
Review: I don't read much non-fiction that isn't science-oriented these days, but I found this book hard to put down. Having read Theodore Dreiser and Hawthorne at an early age, but not having many other literary reference points, I associated books about New England towns with characters whose personalities were as flinty as the soil of their native New England. However, Kidder's characters (who are real, and not fictional) are far-removed from this stereotype and painted with a great deal of compassion and nostalgia. Silly me. Kidder's book evokes the appealing ambience of this small Massachusetts town through the lives of a number of its citizens. Through the eyes of Tommy, the likeable and dedicated local detective, we get a glimpse of both the upper levels of Northampton society and its soft underbelly. The aura of nostalgia for a small New England town's way of life at the close of the 20th century becomes reality as Tommy takes a new job, and gets set to move away from the Northhampton he knows and loves. All in all an appealing book that kept me interested until the last page.
Rating:
Summary: JOURNALISTIC MASTERPIECE
Review: This book is so good it took my breath away. It is "Winesburg, Ohio" times ten, "Middletown" with readability, "Akenfield" transplanted 3,000 miles west. I can't imagine a more concise, bright, scholarly, imaginative, incisive study of the good heartedness and foolishness of the American people. Tracy Kidder has written another masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Tracy, for your own good, get away from the Pioneer Valley.
Review: Kidder lives in western Massachusetts, the setting of his last four books. Elementary education, institutional care for the elderly, and custom home building each gets his observer/reporter treatment. HOME TOWN is partly a collection of impressions saved out from earlier books. None have the exciting beginning, middle, and end of his 1981 triumph, THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE. Yet all are fine, fine pieces of writing. The chapter on obsessive-compulsive disorder ("Hands") in HOME TOWN is as good an essay on behavior accommodation as I've ever read. It's not easy to like all of Kidder's people, especially Tommy the native cop who shaves and shines his head and wears shades and practices a narrow-eyed stare to look more fearsome, and who loves the bulk that Kevlar jackets provide and the creaking leather from Sam Brown belts. His kind is probably necessary for the public order in unsafe places. But as Judge Ryan (my favorite person in the book) observes: as likable as Tommy is, he is dangerous. If you visit Northampton, watch the inappropriate laughter while waiting in line with academicians and genXers for a table in a Main Street restaurant. It's a Woody Allen setting shot through with hip neuroses and about as representative of American urban life as Istanbul. A far better book is HOMETOWN (1982) by Peter Davies, an Academy Award documentary filmmaker. Hamilton, Ohio, is the location because it is Northern enough to the industrial, Southern enough to have a gently rural aspect, Western enough to have once been on the frontier, and East enough to have a past. Davies developed a wonderful connection with his subject over six years. His book is briefer than Kidder's, but contains more insights. And it has a beginning, middle, and end.
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