Jerry Matheny

Letters to the Editor: Two Hundred Years in the Life of an American Town Jerry Matheny 1st edition

The voices of America's past and present live on in this timeless portrayal of small-town America, which, through two hundred years of letters to one town's newspapers, evokes the most memorable moments in our history and the passions they engendered.
Since the days of the Founding Fathers, the citizens of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, have recorded their impressions of such dramatic events of national significance as the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the rise of Andrew Carnegie, the assassinations of President John F. and Senator Robert Kennedy, and the Clarence Thomas hearings -- as well as their opinions on genuinely local concerns like building good schools and roads, seeing the sights at the Bloomsburg Fair, romantic intrigue in a trailer park, and finding a home for a lonely puppy.
By turns hilarious and contemplative, here is a book so genuinely representative of the American experience that each page will bring memories of home and family, friends and neighbors, and our own hometowns sharply -- and honestly -- into focus. Beneath it all, Letters to the Editor is about how a community negotiates with itself, how it talks and how it listens.