i think what keeps this from being actually nasty -- which is how most novelists have depicted small towns , from nathaniel hawthorne te grace metalious -- is that most party-line , grocery-store , and barbershop gossip is oddly naive -- it is as if these people expect meanness and shallowness , will even invent it if it is not there , but that real and conscious evil may be beyond their conception , even when it floats right before their faces like a magic carpet from one o ' those greaseball ay-rab fairy tales .