small-town

Being bigheaded can be as irritating and as dangerous as being small-minded.

I wish I could run away,_ Rudger told Jersey as they both rushed in and out of various patients_ rooms, darting around like little ants. __ can__ leave and be on my own though, not right now, anyway.___hy?_ asked Jersey, waving her flashlight in mid-air.Rudger froze for a second, a regretful haze emanating from his eyes. __t__ break her heart if I left.___in__ that normal? For parents to have mixed feelings about their kids growin_ up?___ot for me, it isn__.__ersey made a pitying face in his direction. __o, you wanna keep bein_ towed around with your mom, livin_ in a gross town like Danvers?___s there a choice?___eah, there sure is. You can run away and try to be a whole person before it__ too late, or you can live with mommy dearest forever and turn into Norman Bates.

As a rule, she didn__ like boys very much, but she had to admit, Charlie was actually pretty nice.

[He] had to submit to the fate of every newcomer in a small town, where many tongues talk but few heads think.

Knowledge is currency here....

This is a small town, so everyone talks. Ironic, isn't it__o few people, so many opinions?

Where everyone knows your name, and a safe place to raise a family.

The young of the town, preoccupied with their own germinating angst, which each possessed in varying degree (though few were ever fully aware of its existence), felt no particular connection to the land, its people, its structures, or its history. As such, they had no inclination to defend its invisible borders from declared enemies within or without. They desired only escape from this small village, which each viewed as an existential prison built upon the antiquated expectations of their parents and their parents_ parents. And because of their invisible bondage, the young of this town were possessed by a quiet rage. But this rage laid torpid and inert within them, dulled to sleep by the tired repetition of nothing happening over and over and over again, day after day after day.This is the story of one of those young people, and the terrible things that happened to her, and the terrible things she did as a result.

Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o'clock naps. And by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer. There's no hurry, for there's nowhere to go and nothing to buy...and no money to buy it with.

Living in a small town [in India] was like living in a glass house!

In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. In the little towns and villages there are no minorities; people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce. Every man is himself a class; every hour carries its new challenge. When you pass the inn at the end of the village you leave your favourite whimsy behind you; for you will meet no one who can share it. We listen to eloquent speaking, read books and write them, settle all the affairs of the universe. The dumb village multitudes pass on unchanging; the feel of the spade in the hand is no different for all our talk: good seasons and bad follow each other as of old. The dumb multitudes are no more concerned with us than is the old horse peering through the rusty gate of the village pound. The ancient map-makers wrote across unexplored regions, 'Here are lions.' Across the villages of fishermen and turners of the earth, so different are these from us, we can write but one line that is certain, 'Here are ghosts.' ("Village Ghosts")

As usual, small towns like this were full of those who needed entertainment and whilst money was difficult to earn, the philosophy of giving the people what they wanted, which Franco lived by, had paid dividends.

Wendy__ house, unlike many in Cape Breton, had three floors, along with a basement and attic. Aside from Wendy__ bedroom, there was a laundry room. The dirty water in the sink would rush from the washer hose, bubbling up, threatening to overflow, but it never did. Next-door was a motel with a neon sign that read in turquoise and pink, __e have the best rates in town!_, but the ___ in __ates_ kept flickering on and off day and night so that every few seconds it would switch to, __e have the best rats in town!

Comely was the town by the curving river that they dismantled in a year's time. Beautiful was Colleton in her last spring as she flung azaleas like a girl throwing rice at a desperate wedding. In dazzling profusion, Colleton ripened in a gauze of sweet gardens and the town ached beneath a canopy of promissory fragrance.

The talks were like blood transfusions, moments of realness and hope that were pinpricks of light in the dark fabric of small-town life.

A scattering of pinpoint lights shows up in the blackness ahead. A town or village straddling the highway. The indicator on the speedometer begins to lose ground. The man glances in his mirror at the girl, a little anxiously as if this oncoming town were some kind of test to be met.An illuminated road sign flashes by: CAUTION! MAIN STREET AHEAD - SLOW UP The man nods grimly, as if agreeing with that first word. But not in the way it is meant.The lights grow bigger, spread out on either side. Street lights peer out here and there among the trees. The highway suddenly sprouts a plank sidewalk on each side of it. Dark store-windows glide by.With an instinctive gesture, the man dims his lights from blinding platinum to just a pale wash. A lunch-room window drifts by. ("Jane Brown's Body")

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree, The True Story of Murder in a Small Town, begins on a steamy August night with two teenagers, brother and sister, on an evil mission deep in a rural Michigan forest. For one desperate moment headlights appear on the lonely access road. Will they be found out? Thus the story of one of state__ strangest criminal cases unfolds. Girl breaks up with boyfriend. He turns violent. She disappears without a trace. Then state police investigators set out on what at first looks like a fool__ journey. The story is colored by a bizarre Ouija board death prophesy and the roles of two psychics, a former practicing witch and a handsome young artist who is suspected of Satanism. The canny and elusive suspect taunts police and seems always to be one step ahead of them. When a key witness is daunted by uncharacteristic injuries, a mysterious medium tells him he is the victim of black magic practiced by the suspect__ grandmother. And when, after eight years, the suspect finally is brought to trial, he is represented by a Roman Catholic priest.

The real core of this book is about the open secrets that can fester in a community until an outsider raises questions.