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Midnights
The defined and undefined beauty and ugliness of a small town is revealed by a music student who joins the police force of a Massachusetts resort community
- GenresNonfiction
200 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 1982
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 12, 2023
"In May of 1975, when I was twenty-three years old, five months out of college with a degree in music, and without any idea of what to do with myself, I took a job as a policeman in Wellfleet, Massachusetts and resolved to stay with it for a year . . . I was lonely much of the time, as well as scared, surprised, excited, embarrassed, self-righteous, and many other things, too." -- from the introductory chapter
Author Wilkinson - better known these days for his 40+ years as a journalist / essayist with The New Yorker magazine - recounts one of his first 'grown-up' jobs with the low-key memoir Midnights. Although a Long Island, NY native, he was familiar with the small beach towns along coastal Cape Cod from his childhood summer vacations. In a scenario that has faded into U.S. history (due to much-upgraded and/or strictly-mandated training requirements, among many other reasons), Wilkinson signs on to an eight-man police department needing seasonal staffing assistance - the local population is approximately 3000, but balloons to quadruple or more that number in the busy summer months - in May 1975. He is quickly hired and his 'instructional period' is basically a number of 'ride-alongs' in the patrol car with fellow officers before soon being assigned the midnight to 8 a.m. shift . . . in which he is often the sole officer on duty for the community (!) Wilkinson recounts some of his experiences - the usual domestic disputes, drunk driving arrests, burglar alarms, and suicides - that are commonplace to uniformed officers everywhere in this nation, plus describes the several distinct personalities of those manning the agency. In the closing chapters he also describes the tension between the department and the town council (the community's governing body, which is staffed by a number of elected local citizens), and it sort of gives credence to the outlook that "The smaller the town, the larger the egos with the politics," which is a quote I first heard from a friend who served as a small municipality's police chief for three years. This is a modest little book, but it helps humanize both those wearing badges AND occasionally victims / suspects / bystanders, too.
Author Wilkinson - better known these days for his 40+ years as a journalist / essayist with The New Yorker magazine - recounts one of his first 'grown-up' jobs with the low-key memoir Midnights. Although a Long Island, NY native, he was familiar with the small beach towns along coastal Cape Cod from his childhood summer vacations. In a scenario that has faded into U.S. history (due to much-upgraded and/or strictly-mandated training requirements, among many other reasons), Wilkinson signs on to an eight-man police department needing seasonal staffing assistance - the local population is approximately 3000, but balloons to quadruple or more that number in the busy summer months - in May 1975. He is quickly hired and his 'instructional period' is basically a number of 'ride-alongs' in the patrol car with fellow officers before soon being assigned the midnight to 8 a.m. shift . . . in which he is often the sole officer on duty for the community (!) Wilkinson recounts some of his experiences - the usual domestic disputes, drunk driving arrests, burglar alarms, and suicides - that are commonplace to uniformed officers everywhere in this nation, plus describes the several distinct personalities of those manning the agency. In the closing chapters he also describes the tension between the department and the town council (the community's governing body, which is staffed by a number of elected local citizens), and it sort of gives credence to the outlook that "The smaller the town, the larger the egos with the politics," which is a quote I first heard from a friend who served as a small municipality's police chief for three years. This is a modest little book, but it helps humanize both those wearing badges AND occasionally victims / suspects / bystanders, too.
February 23, 2024
Quaint in style, time and place and so enjoyable. The setting is a small town police department on Cape Cod, Massachusetts between 1975 and 1976.
The author spent a year as a police officer and wrote about the events of the year. It's his first of many books and his newness as an author fits perfectly with the simple nature of the book. In the Afterword he says it took him three years to write the book and he tended to write in the style of whatever book he was reading, citing Faulkner, Hemmingway, Dinesen and Gertrude Stein along the way. The funny thing is that I had the same thought about his style as I read the book. The chapters about his colleagues were very reminiscent of Studs Terkel's book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do and the chapters about his own experiences had a very John McPhee feel to them.
This is a book about lonely and insecure people with self doubts, not high octane thrills. It's contemplative, self-effacing and thoughtful. It's a short book with short chapters. Easy to pick up and put down.
Much thanks to my bargain hunting Kindle addicted friend John for gifting this book to me at the perfect time.
The author spent a year as a police officer and wrote about the events of the year. It's his first of many books and his newness as an author fits perfectly with the simple nature of the book. In the Afterword he says it took him three years to write the book and he tended to write in the style of whatever book he was reading, citing Faulkner, Hemmingway, Dinesen and Gertrude Stein along the way. The funny thing is that I had the same thought about his style as I read the book. The chapters about his colleagues were very reminiscent of Studs Terkel's book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do and the chapters about his own experiences had a very John McPhee feel to them.
This is a book about lonely and insecure people with self doubts, not high octane thrills. It's contemplative, self-effacing and thoughtful. It's a short book with short chapters. Easy to pick up and put down.
Much thanks to my bargain hunting Kindle addicted friend John for gifting this book to me at the perfect time.
November 27, 2023
I've read other books by Wilkinson and enjoyed them. This one is no different. In the late seventies he spent a year working as a policeman in an small town on Cape Cod. Very entertaining and a story I could identify with. I spent a year as a reserve officer in a small town in Washington. I could empathize with many of his experiences, with the exception of a high speed chase. My experience was similar to his in that there were some scary parts and many humorous interactions. There are several other books of his that I am interested in.
December 16, 2019
A nice story that can be read in a day or 2 about the author who decided to spend a year working in the Wellfleet, MA police department. He came in part because he spend his summers as a child there. To summarize, hours of boredom interspersed with moments of terror.
July 31, 2020
A fun description of "life on a police force." With great descriptions of Wellfleet and lots of self-deprecating humor.
September 20, 2021
having vacationed for years in wellfleet i found this book interesting.
January 1, 2025
An interesting look at what police in a small town have to deal with. And a seemingly immortal seagull.
July 16, 2020
Spare and interesting. Especially interesting to read during a summer the country is trying to reconcile our ideas about the police.
April 25, 2014
I didn't grow up on Cape Cod, but I have many close friends who did, and it has always been a special place to me. I was looking for something that evoked the lonely magic and local color of the Outer Cape especially in the off season, and this pretty much did the trick. The writing is solid indeed. But it also smacks of being the work of a writer early in his career before his voice is fully developed. It is also arguably a case of "class tourism" since it presents a well-off and well-educated New Yorker working a blue collar job for a short time, and complaining about long hours and boredom and insufficient respect from his superiors. Alas, these things are daily and intractable facts of life for most. The book is not very structurally cohesive. It doesn't have much of a narrative structure. The epilogue at the end seemed needless and unmotivated by the relative lack of intimacy the indisputably talented Wilkinson gave us with those characters earlier in the book. The last and next-to-last chapters are the book's strongest, and the material is at its best when Wilkinson is being unflinchingly honest about his on-the-job mistakes.
July 30, 2011
Beach reading...literally. I found it in the beach cottage we'd rented for a week. And was farmed by it. An account of the author's year as a small town cop, it's sensitive and informative. A nice accidental discovery.
August 3, 2016
Alex Wilkinson fans will enjoy reading his first book, feeling him getting his sea legs as both a writer and a rookie small town cop. Also a fun read for people who grew up in Massachusetts in the 1970s.
March 12, 2007
Good one.
February 9, 2012
I believe the author now writes for the NYTimes. A very good book on policing for criminologists, sociologists, people considering a career in law enforcement, or casual readers.
October 10, 2013
A great quick read about an area I know quite well. Recommend for the beach or vacation, rather light read.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews