Home Town - Hardcover

Probing beneath Northampton's friendly exterior, Pulitzer-winning author Tracy Kidder uncovers the town's many layers, from the lowest to the highest rungs of society, and renders a portrait of Northampton by introducing those who know it best. Kidder relies most heavily on native Tommy O'Connor, a 33-year-old police sergeant who has never left his beloved hometown. Tommy's optimism and gentle humor make him an appealing guide, as he shows both the darkest and most charming streets of his town and wrestles with a future that may forever alter his relationship to Northampton. Kidder also introduces readers to Laura Baumeister, a young working mother and Ada Comstock scholar at Smith College who is struggling to care for her son and keep up with the rigorous school curriculum; Alan Scheinman, a real estate lawyer who made a fortune in the 1980s, now plagued by a crippling case of obsessive-compulsive disorder; and Samson Rodriguez, a former loom operator who may have been one of the first people to bring crack cocaine to Northampton. --Kera Bolonik

Praise for House
"This book is the story of the building of a house, and it is told with such clarity, intelligence, and grace it makes you wonder why no one has written a book like it before. In the way that a well-told story of a marriage or of a love affair or of a child's coming of age fills you with a sense that you are reading about a fundamental human experience for the first time, so it is with House."--Paul Goldberger, The New York Times Book Review

The Soul of a New Machine

"Kidder has endowed the tale with such pace, texture and poetic implication that he has elevated it to a high level of narrative art....Splendid."--The New York Times Book Review

Old Friends

"Sheer magic." --Walter Shapiro, Time

Among Schoolchildren
"Tracy Kidder can turn the most unlikely story into a riveting drama." --Anne Tyler