Hamilton County

The fact that there are nine other counties named Hamilton in these United States besides the one in Iowa where MacKinlay Kantor was born simply provides a frame for this many-dimensioned, nostalgic portrait of an American way of life which some think is rapidly disappearing. Tim Kantor's photographs from all ten counties provide stunning evidence that certain truths, worth preserving, are still to be found. Ranging as far northeast as the Adirondacks, as far west as the Texas plains, as far south as Florida, and into six neighboring mid-western states, the Hamilton counties form a cross section of the America MacKinlay Kantor knows well. They provide scenes and subjects which call upon his richest veins of memory and imagination. A sweeping mid-western landscape, for example, recalls the voices of pioneers which even the trail of a jet stream in the sky does not diminish. An old lady sitting alone on her porch brings to mind the mysterious Miss Hattie and her antic poltergeist; sturdy farm scenes inspire a moving story of a man's love for his land. Eight new short stories of American life by the prize-winning novelist, sketches, anecdotes, reportage, historical summation and more than one hundred eloquent photographs move together through these pages to make Mamilton County a beautiful and unique book.