Far From Home: Life and Loss in Two American Towns Powers, Ron

A Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author chronicles the diverse paths of two American towns, detailing the decline and renaissance of Cairo, Illinois, and the despoiling and destruction of community identity in Kent, Connecticut

In a vital and disturbing book, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Powers ( White Town Drowsing ) contrasts the changes in the characters of two towns: Cairo, Ill., which he visited for this study, and Kent, Conn., where he had a home until recently, when he relocated to Vermont. In once-prosperous Cairo, the citizenry, organized by 73-year-old community development specialist Richard Poston, is attempting, not altogether successfully, to reinvigorate itself. Kent has different problems. Farming country since the 1700s, the town has been invaded by developers, whose condo complexes destroy the landscape, and by moneyed newcomers, who cause resentment: Henry Kissinger, for example, cleared his acreage of the blueberry bushes the townsfolk, by tradition, considered theirs for the picking. American towns flourish and die as a matter of course, readers are reminded by a writer who affectingly shows that "if town life in this country is over, so is an essential culture rooted in obligations and the perception of a common good."
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An extraordinary dissection by Powers (White Town Drowsing, 1986, etc.) of the plight and attempted resurrection of two small towns: Cairo, Ill., ``a violent, sorrowful little town'' perhaps breathing its last; and Kent, Conn., a ``prosperity-stricken'' rural town struggling to maintain its identity. Powers's towns have little in common. Cairo, at the southern tip of Illinois, has ``been dying for a hundred seventy years.'' Kent, a placid New England town, finds itself overwhelmed by the real-estate boom of the 1980's. One faces ``death by atrophy,'' the other, ``death by renaissance.'' Powers's meticulous examinations of the past, the hopes for revival, and the vivid personalities of each community reveal the towns' steady evolution to their current state. Following a ``breech birth'' in 1818, Cairo wouldn't build its first structure--prophetically, a tavern--for a decade. Described by Dickens as ``A dismal swamp...an ugly sepulchre,'' the town was populated by gamblers and prostitutes and assorted thugs. By the turn of the century, Cairo was a stronghold of white supremacy, culminating in well- publicized gunplay during the 1960's race riots. Current mayor Al Ross, leader of the neo-Nazi White Hats, is the most visible legacy of that era. Kent, in contrast, hasn't the colorful, volcanic history of Cairo; but therein, notes Powers, lies its problem. This scenic town in the Berkshire foothills has always attracted ``weekenders'' and ``summer people,'' particularly New York artists and writers who, while never actively participating in ``community,'' have added demand onto Kent's limited, fragile infrastructure and services. With the 1980's came the sudden influx of ``fresh money'' as developers and architects imposed their modernized, upscale vision of ``rural'' lifestyle on the community. The rapid overdevelopment left Kent with no real commercial tax base, and thanks to the onset of severe recession throughout New England, the town is now foundering. A revelatory work with a great deal to say about the mythology, history, and future of the American Dream. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

As small towns die, asks Powers, can the culture, even the myths they represent survive in this urban age? In White Town Drowsing ( LJ 11/1/86), he examined the struggles of his hometown Hannibal, Missouri. Here he limns an endangered species--the small town threatened, ironically, by either of opposite afflictions: atrophy or hyperprosperity. Cairo, Illinois, a long-dying river town wracked by economic and racial problems, hopes to be saved by a professor of community development. In contrast, Kent, Connecticut, finds wealthy New Yorkers buying weekend homes, straining services, and causing such a rise in property values and taxes that the service people, after centuries of local residence, can't afford to live in their own town anymore. Powers's keen eye for detail and sympathetic ear bring alive the often bewildered people in these threatened places. Highly recommended for all libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/91.
- Roland Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.