Text by Elaine Hines

Photo by Gabriel Cooney

Tracy Kidder '63 writes of elemental things-work (The Soul of a New Machine), home (House), old age (Old Friends), education (Among Schoolchil-dren) and community (Home Town). He writes big by writing small, grabbing the reader by focusing on the thousand daily details of one company, one house, one friendship, one schoolroom, one town.

"I'm a little suspicious of the great, overarching view. It always leaves something out," says Kidder. "What interests me is trying to catch the reflection of the human being on the page. I'm interested in how ordinary people live their lives."

In capturing how ordinary people live their lives, Kidder also captures what lies beneath the surface, beyond the edges. Recognized as one of America's leading writers of non-fiction, Kidder has won numerous literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award.

Kidder's upbringing, which he describes as "completely conventional," gave little clue to his future as a best-selling author. Born in New York City, Kidder moved with his family to Long Island in 1949. His father was a lawyer, his mother a teacher. Although he describes his junior high as "terrible," he resisted his parents' urgings to attend boarding school. "I wanted to stay with my friends on Long Island," he says, "but I finally agreed to take a look at Andover. I remember being impressed by the school's extraordinary facilities. I thought about it long and hard and decided to give it a try."

To prepare for his first year at PA, Kidder attended the Phillips Academy Summer Session, where he encountered high expectations in the person of English instructor Tom Regan. "The hardest thing was learning to write," Kidder declares. "I was 13, and the only writing I had done was for Social Studies. It consisted of copying passages right out of the encyclopedia. But at Andover we read and wrote every day, and Mr. Regan was a very good writing teacher. You know, people say you can't teach writing, but I think that's nonsense," he says.

Although Summer Session helped hone his academic skills, Kidder still found his first year at PA difficult. "Andover was like a monastery back then. We worked all the time," he recalls, "and the hazing was ferocious-I still hate to think about it." In time, Kidder adjusted to the pressure.

"Once you know you can handle it, it's never as difficult again," he notes, "and I had some great courses and made wonderful lifelong friends." A proctor at Draper Cottage, Kidder also played varsity baseball and football. "Sports were crucial," he says. "Looking forward to those games could get you through the week."

After graduation, Kidder headed for Harvard with thoughts of becoming a diplomat. All that changed in sophomore year. "Suddenly the idea of being a writer seemed much more romantic-and a great way to impress girls," he explains. He switched his major to English and began "consuming" fiction. "I would read and write all night long and, as a result, wound up cutting a lot of my other classes," he admits.

In junior year, Kidder joined ROTC, and after graduation he spent a year in Vietnam as a lieutenant in Army intelligence. "I really didn't see any action," he says, "but when I got back, I wrote a novel about the combat experiences I didn't have in Vietnam."

Dismissing this early unpublished literary effort as "really bad," Kidder was eager to continue developing his writing skills. From 1971 to 1974, he attended the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, a program known for the literary luster of both its staff and alumni. There he met Atlantic Monthly contributing editor Dan Wakefield, who helped him get a foot in the door at the magazine. Kidder began a long association with The Atlantic, where he worked with Richard Todd, who remains his editor to this day. "Todd got me started and, as much as anyone, taught me how to write," Kidder observes.

An Atlantic assignment to cover the Juan Corona mass-murder trial in California led to his first published book, The Road to Yuba City, released in 1974. And, in the late '70s, it was at Todd's suggestion that Kidder set to work on his blockbuster, The Soul of a New Machine. The book follows a team of computer engineers as they race against time to build a revolutionary mini-computer. With its compelling sense of momentum and its "up close and personal" style, the book rocketed to the top of the best-seller list and garnered both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1982.

How did Kidder handle the sudden success? "I fluctuated between taking it much too seriously and not taking it seriously at all, but it was all very exciting," he says.

The Soul of a New Machine was followed by House, an account of the construction of a private home. Next came Among Schoolchildren, a narrative of one year in the life of a fifth-grade class and its teacher. It won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award in 1989. As is his custom, Kidder had immersed himself in his subject-sitting in the classroom every day and taking 10,000 pages of handwritten notes.

For Old Friends, a study of old age and friendship, Kidder visited a nursing home daily for two years and filled 89 spiral notebooks with observations. In addition to on-site research, Kidder normally spends hours at the library, digesting everything he can find about the topic at hand. "Finally, I make an index of my notes and then get to the writing as soon as I can," he explains. "I do a rough draft, and then I rewrite and rewrite. I want my prose to be as clear as a pane of glass.

"At first, I spend about four hours a day writing. Toward the end of a book, I spend up to 16 hours a day on it, because all I want to do is make it good and get it done," he says.

In his latest book, Home Town, published last spring, Kidder presents an insider's view of Northampton, Mass., a picture-postcard New England city that is home to Smith College. Kidder conducted much of the research for Home Town by riding around town in a police cruiser with Tommy O'Connor, a 33-year-old cop he met while working out in a local gym. Using O'Connor as the book's central character, Kidder profiles a series of townspeople and shows how a community can embrace diversity and make it work.

With Home Town in the bookstores, Kidder is looking ahead. "I always want to write some- thing better than the last book-though I'm never sure just what `better' means.

"I know that to write you have to have stories you want to tell. You have to keep your mind alive, and you have to work hard. I think if the writing comes too easily, it shows-it's usually hard to read."