NONFICTION - Jan. 14, 1996

HUDDLE FEVER: Living in the Immigrant City by Jeanne Schinto. (Knopf: $24; 302 pp.) On the surface, a detailed history of the city of Lawrence, Mass., seems a highly specialized subject for a book. Lawrence is a thoroughly unremarkable place, best known for the textile mills that used to be its chief source of employment. Yet, Jeanne Schinto’s “Huddle Fever” is emblematic for Lawrences everywhere. It is a book about the poverty, exhaustion and rage found today in so many working-class cities.

Schinto lived in Lawrence for 10 years, and the sections detailing her time there are the strongest in the book. Much of the history is engaging as well: the Bread and Roses strike of 1912, an unscrupulous mill owner named Billy Wood. “Huddle Fever” is a deeply insightful portrait of a city in trouble, a portrait filled with so much good-hearted caring that some readers may want Lawrence to prosper as much for Schinto’s peace of mind as for the city itself.