In 1970, "Esquire" named the rural West Tennessee college town of Martin as one of the nine happy towns left in the United States. Bob Cowser Jr. offers a dissenting opinion on this assessment of the bucolic environs of his youth in his collection of forthright reflections on boyhood in Martin and his experiences in the other locations (New Orleans; Lincoln, NE; and Canton, NY) that have constituted "home." Ranging in tone from confessional and contemplative to candid and comic, the stories in "Scorekeeping" conjoin to form an exceptional portrait of smalltown life as lived by the son of English professors with an unflinching eye and creative wit.