"Midnights is both a comedy of errors and an affectionate portrait of small-town police, those beleaguered souls charged with the task of keeping their neighbors in line....A reminder that those assigned to protect are often vulnerable and quietly heroic."-Time Funny, touching, revealing, here is the view from a rookie cop's patrol car, during midnight shifts, in a (mostly) peaceful town. With a rich cast of characters, this is a classic memoir of the fear, surprises, excitement, embarrassment that comes with a protecting and serving a small community. "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," so writes Alec Wilkinson. "Music, huh?" the police chief said during the job interview. "That'll be a big help." Wilkinson's main qualification was familiarity with the town of 2,000 people from summers there growing up. Committing himself to a year wearing a uniform and carrying a gun, and with no training, Wilkinson was sent out to keep the peace, hoping nothing would happen. There are high-speed chases and stopping drunk drivers, one of whom tries to set Wilkinson's hair on fire. There are domestic squabbles. "The first six months were murder for me," Wilkinson's partner confides on his first night. "After that, when I found out the people I thought were my friends weren't really my friends, I felt better off." There is an attempted bank robbery. The teller convinces the robber that his haul ($300) is too much to carry around in cash. The robber is still listening to investment options when the police arrive. Throughout there are conversations with his eight fellow officers who Wilkinson comes to respect and admire. "Nobody ever calls you when they're behaving themselves," one admits. "As a rule, you always get called when people are at their worst. It's sad. It depresses me." The job is often thankless. "Right now I work on the police force," another officer says, "my wife stamps cans in the supermarket, and she makes more money than I do." This is experiential journalism at its most poignant and entertaining-and it launched the career of Alec Wilkinson: writer, interviewer, essayist, and author. This is for any reader looking for insight into the real lives of police officers, outside of large cities, across America. It is also for anyone looking for a marvelously engaging read. Midnights is part of Godine's Nonpareil imprint: celebrating the joy of discovery with books bound to be classics.

A true American original is brought to life in this rich and lively portrait of Pete Seeger, who, with his musical grace and inextinguishable passion for social justice, transformed folk singing into a high form of peaceful protest in the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing on his extensive talks with Seeger, "New Yorker" writer Alec Wilkinson lets us experience the man's unique blend of independence and commitment, charm, courage, energy, and belief in human equality and American democracy.
We see Seeger instilled with a love of music by his parents, both classically trained musicians; as a teenager, hearing real folk music for the first time; and as a young man, singing with Woody Guthrie and with the Weavers. We learn of his harassment by the government for his political beliefs and his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1949. And we follow his engagement with civil rights, the peace movement, and the environment--especially his work saving the Hudson River and building the ship "Clearwater." He talks ardently about his own music and that of others, and about the power of music to connect people and bind them to a cause. Finally, we meet Toshi, his wife of nearly sixty years, and members of his family, at the house he built on a mountainside in upstate New York.
"The Protest Singer" is as spirited and captivating as its subject--an American icon, celebrating his ninetieth birthday.

"From the Hardcover edition."

A compelling reflection on wisdom, friendship, and the craft of writing, My Mentor is also the touching story of a young man's education at the hands of a master, William Maxwell. At age twenty-four, Alec Wilkinson approached Maxwell in hopes of being taught to write. A quarter century of friendship followed. As a fiction editor of The New Yorker, Maxwell was unquestionably one of the past century's most respected editors; as the author of the masterpieces They Came Like Swallows and So Long, See You Tomorrow, he was one of its greatest American writers. His unparalleled ear for language and eye for detail, his depth of understanding and experience, make his instructions on writing an essential guide to the craft. In honoring this great man of letters, Wilkinson creates a "deft and sympathetic portrait" (New York Times Book Review).