By Tracy Kidder. Home Town pays homage to the sanctity of place in a transient world. For many, the notion of a small town has a magical draw, and through Kidder we are able to step inside one to assess the idealized image against the reality. Home Town reveals the charms and bitter undercurrents, the fact that, sadly, no place can protect against the randomness of tragedy, the loss of loved ones, the dreadful mistake.
Tensions lie along socioeconomic lines, a signature of many college towns.
Northampton's largest employer is Smith College, one of the elite Seven Sisters schools, which contributes a great deal economically and culturally to the community. College and town embody the dichotomies inherent in our heterogeneous society and fundamental to the history of both. Meanwhile, Smith had endured and grown. It had become that ideal place within a place. We see Northampton through the eyes of a number of its residents.