LINDEN ON THE SAUGUS BRANCH

This might be termed a retrospective farewell to the author's birthplace. It resurrects his early years in matter of fact, anecdotal manner, and competes well with the plethora of household histories in its screening of a New England town at the turn of the century. These are reminiscences of local japes, inverted gallantries, and somewhat scatological humor pertaining to relatives, townspeople, and incidental characters. The result- a series of profiles, in which the succession of medical, social, racial, festive, economic, hereditary, religious, emotional, sexual questions focusses around local characters and happenings, tradition and custom. From the hotel, the barbershop, the town's rich man, to the author's own family history -- this is Elliot Paul's personal ""life and death of a town"".