Jonathan Dee's The Locals

It's a shame that you'll never see author Jonathan Dee's books on the New York Times bestseller lists. No, we'd rather read Patterson, Baldacci, and Grisham while so-called literary fiction languishes on the back burner. But Dee's last novel "The Privileges," was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. The reason is that the man has vision and courage. He's not afraid to point out the flaws in the people who are just the ones who might be buying his books.

I was drawn to "The Locals" because it's set in the Berkshires where I grew up, specifically, Great Barrington, Stockbridge, Lenox, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Dee has surely spent some time there because he has the atmosphere down pat. The notorious love/hate relationship between the locals and the folks who come up from "the city" along the Taconic State Parkway for summer weekends, autumn leaf gazing, and winter ski trips. We love them because they pump their over abundance of bucks into the local economy. We hate them because we need them.

This amazing, clever, sly novel is set in the fictional southern Berkshire town of Howland, post 9/11. Local building contractor and general all around nice guy Mark Firth has unwisely invested what little spare money he had in a Ponzi scheme. His business is suffering, not to mention his relationship with his wife who had to go back to work to bail them out. Karen seethes with resentment, a fact that also colors her relationship with their daughter Haley.

Their next door neighbor is a wealthy New Yorker who seldom uses his gorgeous oversized home. People in town resent him too. How come they're all struggling to make ends meet when someone like Phil Hadi can let a palace like that sit empty half the year? Until 9/11 that is. Hadi, a money manager with billionaire clients, moves his family permanently to the Berkshire home to get away from the likelihood of another terrorist attack on the city. He wants an armed fortress. Money is no object. Mark Firth is glad to oblige.

And so begins a novel that pits the wealthy outsiders against the local people who are often just living paycheck to paycheck. Hadi loves the Berkshires so much that he decides to run for Selectman after the death of Howland's lackadaisical part time leader. At first the locals suspect that Hadi is just having fun at their expense. He eschews a paycheck, and even bails out several small businesses on the QT with his own funds just to maintain the illusion that the town is doing great. Eventually the locals come to depend upon Hadi, which is all well and good until he tires of his little social experiment.

This compelling book nails every little truth about small town life. I could visualize every pickup truck filled with carpentry tools, every bagel shop where the "live-heres" and the "come-heres" share turf. There's an hysterical chapter about a pretentious new farm to table restaurant  (I even know where it is). The locals save for a year just to step inside the doors while the city people tweet and blog about the $100 four ounce piece of meat decorated with sprigs of mystery grass.

Dee also gives us some wonderful secondary characters. I especially enjoyed Mark's sister Candace who saves the barely functioning library and begins surreptitiously allowing abused kids who've run away from home to sleep overnight in the children's room. Then there's the quintessential Century 21, gold-jacketed, fast-talking real estate agent, Gerry, who uses his unsold listing properties to meet co-workers for casual sex.

If you've ever grown up in a small town or wished you had, this new book from Jonathan Dee is a must-read. It's not all Norman Rockwell any more, but a seething cauldron of pettiness, fear of keeping up, and marriages held together by fraying tethers of economic necessity. Dee has the courage and the talent to shine a light on it.