Publisher's Synopsis
Athens, Iowa, is the best of small college towns: affluent, cultured, tolerant, safe, and insulated from a world that seems to lack all those advantages. But at the beginning of a long dry summer, Athens sheds its communal innocence as two teenagers are killed in a police chase gone bad. Joe Holly, burned out city councilman is suddenly in the middle of a public crisis as the Athens police department is accused of negligence in the death of a drug-dealing thug and Becky Hamilton. As his campaign for re-election nears the first Tuesday in November, he finally understands his own limitations and the choice he must make. As he says early, "This is a story about my family and my town, and how I lost one." Jack Hamilton and his wife Marcie refuse to participate in the public drama that their daughter's death has inspired. Their private grief has its own spiral, and all they want is to be left alone. But with the help of their daughter's own words and the lyrics from a forgotten Harry Chapin song, they eventually find peace. This is the story of two men dealing with public tragedy and private grief.;And the lesson for a reader is from Joe Holly, who amends Tip O'Neill's famous axiom 'All politics is local'. For Holly, 'All local politics is personal'.
