Before I started this book in 2002, I had had a persistent urge for years to write a story about a small New England town--namely, Northfield, Massachusetts--that I loved and knew well. Six generations of my family have gone there. The first ancestor of mine arrived in 1890, and for more than one hundred years afterward, family members returned in the spring, summer, and fall seasons. As a child, I remember overhearing my parents telling of the rich...