Welcome to Utopia

During extended visits over a two-year period beginning in 2006, Valby (senior writer, Entertainment Weekly) lived among the residents of the small town of Utopia, TX. She witnessed the effects of rapid changes brought about by the recent invasion of satellite TV, broadband, and Wi-Fi—forces defined by old-timers as destructive to their proud small-town culture. Young people, however, regarded the changes as liberating. Some were anxious to leave the restrictive sameness of Utopia but felt tethered by that same familiarity as well as the comfort of their traditional roots. Valby looks beyond mythology and stereotypes to depict the real-life dynamics of a small American town's everyday joys, life-changing tragedies and choices, and customary celebrations, using its inhabitants' own frank, sensitive, intolerant, and kindhearted words and actions, rarely criticizing or commenting beyond the obvious.