Small Town

Author’s Preface

Because it would be impossible to conceal from any resolute investigator the identity of the town about which this book is written, I have employed only the flimsiest of disguises. If I do not use the name that the town bears on the map, that is to remind my neighbors that most readers will not care what the town is called or where it is located. No living resident of the town, except for myself and my family, is given the name he actually bears. I do not therefore assume that my neighbors will be unable to identify some of the men and women who are mentioned. However, I warn them to be careful, for I have not hesitated to mix things up when it served my purpose. A book of this kind is valueless unless it is honest. I have set down nothing in malice, but I may as well admit that the book could never have been written if I had stopped on every page to worry about the possibility of hurting someone’s feelings. I have not wanted to hurt anybody’s feelings, and if feelings are hurt, I’m sorry, but that was a chance I had to take. There are some of my fellow townsmen who wouldn’t like anything I did, and the fact that they won’t like this book doesn ’t particularly bother me. On the other hand, there are many neighbors whom I should be loath to offend. I don’t think they will be offended. I think they will see that I have written about their town and mine because one has to start with what he knows. After all, from the point of view of the general reader this isn’t a book about the particular town in which my neighbors and I live; it is a study of a small fragment of American life— small but, I hope, significant. Author’s Preface The book was begun in the summer of 1944, and a first draft was finished a year later. The manuscript was completely rewritten between September 1, 1945, and February 1, 1946, and the point of view throughout is that of the months following V-J Day. I am grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation for making possible the writing of the book, and to John Marshall, Associate Director of the Humanities Division of the Foundation, for his help and encouragement. I am grateful to all the friends who have read and criticized the manuscript at various stages, and particularly to Baker Brownell. I thank Rollee Herbert, Rachelle Lubar, Jane Metzger, Alice Rabe, and Jeanne Watson for letting me examine the results of their studies of public opinion in a small town. And Lee Levenson is once more to be thanked for her typing. s m a l l t o w n xl ...