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Summary: COULD ONLY BE A HOMETOWN FAVORITE
Review: There is no question about it -- if you live in or around Northampton, Massachusetts, you will probably enjoy this book more than others. To the outsider, this is a trip through Anytown, USA with some "real" characters who are all so borderline that you can't actually relate to any of them. Tommy O'Connor is the winner of the American dream award proving that if you dream it you can achieve it. It's hard not to be rooting for him all the way through.
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Summary: Kidder brings Hometown to life
Review: This is another of Tracy Kidder's wonderfully detailed stories. This time he brings the reader into a small town in western Massachusetts. Although history is interwoven throughout the book, it could not be more alive. He weaves the story through the lives of five or six characters. It is uncanny how interesting these people are. Had he written fiction, it would have been hard to believe that so much drama could happen in one small town, but knowing it's non-fiction makes it even better. I listened to this book on tape, and couldn't wait to get into the car to hear the next installment!
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Summary: Voyeurism isn't literature.
Review: When an author watches other people, then puts intimite details of their lives in print, isn't this simply the written act of a peeping Tom? I find it interesting that Kidder doesn't write about himself at all. I wonder how he'd like being cast as the central character in someone else's book.
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Summary: Doesn't live up to its promise
Review: This one was a disappointment. Unlike HOUSE, where Kidder was able to keep a strong narrative drive, here we are introduced to characters, brought into their lives and then left hanging. Julia, Alan, the Mayor, the stripper Alan had the affair with, they just don't serve the narrative drive of the book. The portrait of Tommy was unsatisfying as a result - every time he was absent, the story bogged down. There was so much more to know about him - for instance, for someone so attached to family and hometown, why was there no mention of his interactions with his siblings, other than one phone call from a brother. If he's estranged, I want to know, if they're tight, that's important too.What's more, I felt this tone throughout of an intellectual observer dropping in to a place and discovering that there is nobility and understanding in "real people". Rather than celebrating these people, the treatment felt condescending.
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Summary: "Hamps" Beat "Nohoes" in TKO
Review: Tracy Kidder had a great gimmick going in "Hometown." He saw Northampton, Massachusetts, as a town divided between two factions: the "Hamps" are the original townies, the old homeowners, the radio listeners, the political establishment, the stay-at-homes. "Noho" describes those who came from afar: the younger, more gentry, more yuppie, more liberal, more affluent, more rootless, more in sympathy with Smith College contingent. Kidder establishes this dichotomy, runs with it for a while . . . and then drops it. He spends too much time cruising around time with one policeman, and the book suffers as a result. Sorry, but I didn't see the patient craftsmanship here that I saw in THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE. What could have been an outstanding book is merely a good one.
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Summary: Snore Town?
Review: The main character is the town of Northhampton, Massachusetts. The problem is, towns don't really do anything. The people who are born, live, or die in them add color and spice. In this town, as Mr. Kidder sees it, some of the main characters of this town include a bald hometown cop (who eventually departs for the FBI), a rich obsessive compulsive (whose therapy includes kinky photography), a Smith College student (who is 26 and suffers from a mid-life crisis), a police informant (who is a likable loser--big surprise), a mayor (who might be a lesbian). Kidder presents them respectfully. A thousand years from now sociologists may study the book with great curiousity. But in the here and now one is left with a huge so what? As a reader and fan of Kidder's earlier books, particularly SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE and HOUSE, I looked for something interesting to hold this book together. In the end, the town's main street is Kidder's only glue and is presented about as interestingly as Elmer's hardening on veneer. Elmer's hardening on veneer can be interesting, I suspect, but I know now there are more interesting subjects to study and more compelling ways to present the results. Northhampton is a town. There are good people, bad people, indifferent people, well-intentioned people, crackheads, juvenile delinquents, liberal judges, graffiti, old buildings, a history, etc. There's nothing revealing or surprising here. Save your money. If you have to read HOME TOWN, borrow it from the library. Sorry, Mr. Kidder, but it may the last book of yours I read after the unevenness of SCHOOLCHILDREN and the perceptible decline and weariness of OLD FRIENDS.
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Summary: One good cop
Review: This is one great book that restores your faith not only in small towns, but in the police that protect those towns. I was deeply moved by the compassion and competence of young Tommy O'Conner. Tough enough to take care of business, but not afraid to reveal a soft underbelly. I hope in the future Kidder will keep us posted on the exploits of O'Conner as he takes on the challenges of the FBI.
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Summary: Kidder again enmeshes the reader in the truth of the mundane
Review: Tracy Kidder has again done a beautiful job of portraying the ordinary in a fascinating, readable way. We learn about ourselves in his writing because we can connect to his real and human characters. Real people come alive in this narrative as they always do in his writing....and they are usually much more interesting than any fictional characters could be.
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Summary: a real disappointment...
Review: There's no question that Northampton is a fastinating place. But this book fails to capture it or to sustain the reader's interest, probably because the author chooses an uninteresting central character. Some of the secondary characters provide a spark of interest, but ultimately the book disappoints in a major way.
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Summary: It took ME Home
Review: I could relate to this book so well, but then again, I grew up there!! Tracy Kidder describes this town to a tee. And he is very correct in saying that there is something about the town that doesn't let go, the view of Mt. Tom for instance. Even after you leave, there is always something that brings you back. I learned alot about the little old town, it just makes it that much more intriguing!!
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