The Locals

by Jonathan Dee

A rural, working class New England town elects as its mayor a New York hedge fund millionaire in this urgent and inspired novel for our times.

Mark Firth is a home builder in Howland, Massachusetts who, after being swindled by a financial advisor, feels opportunity passing him and his family by. What future can he promise to his wife Karen and their young daughter Haley? When a wealthy money manager, Philip Hadi, moves to Howland to escape post-9/11 New York, he hires Mark to turn his his house into a secure location. The collision of these two men's very different worlds -- rural vs urban, middle class vs rich -- propels Jonathan Dee's powerful new novel. After the town's first selectman passes away suddenly, Hadi runs for office and begins subtly transforming the town in his image with unexpected results for Mark and his extended family. THE LOCALS is that rare work of fiction capable of capturing a fraught American moment in real time. It is also a novel that is timeless in its depiction of American small town life.

• ISBN10: 1472151925
• ISBN13: 9781472151926
• Publish Date: 10 August 2017 (first published 8 August 2017)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 5 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
• Imprint: Corsair
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

It’s not often I can say that I like a book for its depiction of small-town government more than its depiction of people. And that sounds boring, but it’s… not. There’s no one here to get invested in, they’re Franzen characters, but it’s the interactions and machinations and inevitable decline into the political morass we have today that makes the story interesting. It’s not really a parable. What’s the way out? This book doesn’t have it. What’s a better solution? Not here either. It just shows how we get there and leaves it at that.

In a way, I think one solution is to read the books I usually read, where characters are wrong and dumb and noble and funny and right in a lot of ways too. If we keep seeing people as their worst selves, as in this book, we sink toward hating everyone. If just one of these characters actually liked someone else for being weird or broken or stubborn, then the story starts to change.

Ironically, the best part of the whole book is the prologue. It’s one of the best things I’ve read about the immediate 9/11 aftermath. It’s funny and sociopathic and introduces the most interesting character of the book, even when he then disappears for the rest of the book. But I know why Jonathan Dee had to include it. It’s too good to leave out.

Four stars for doing nothing I like in a novel but being an interesting read nonetheless. Five stars for the prologue, a story unto itself.