Customer Reviews

Small Town

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Granville Hicks (1901-1982) wrote reviews, essays, novels, and works of literary history and criticism for more than fifty years. In 1946 Hicks wrote Small Town in which he gave his readers a fascinating and timeless portrait of life in the rural crossroads of Grafton, New York. This was a small community to which had had moved after being fired for his left-wing political views from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In Small Town, Hicks combined hand-crafted ethnography research with his personal reflections on the qualities of small town life as they were being threatened by post-war encroachments by spreading cities and expanding suburbs. Hicks eloquently defined the essential qualities of small town community life and linked to hem to the best features of American popular and political culture. Long out of print and highly recommended reading for students of twentieth century American culture and history, this new edition of Small Town is enhanced for a new generation of readers with an informed and informative introduction by Warren F. Broderick and a preface by Ron Powers.

I grew up in Grafton New York, and according to my parents I had dinner with Mr. Hicks when I was two years old. While I don't recall the event, I'm sure a good time was had by all. The author scrambles local names and geography enough to make identifying individuals difficult, but I understand that some people took offense to their portrayals in the book.

"Small Town" is an interesting book, but it is guilty of romanticizing rural life over and over again. Mr. Hicks makes frequent reference to the "amazing ability of small town folks to work internal combustion engines", something for which he has no knack. He doesn't seem to make the logical connection that people who have all their capital bound up in farm equipment learn how to fix it themselves.

Asigning nobility to the necessary is tempting, and sometimes it is true. The rigors of life in a town where farming is profitless and industry is non-existant can cause people to act in noble ways.

Grafton has changed a lot since Granville Hicks wrote the book on it. Small Town mentions a divide between long-time residents and city folks who've moved into town. This has solidified into the divide between educated middle-class people who's children almost inevitably move to a different town, and those who's families are from the area who continue to work irregularly at the lumber mills and commute to dead-end jobs in larger towns. There is little socializing between the two groups, and that divide is probably the most notable thing about Grafton in this day and age.