If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska.(Brief Article)(Book Review)

IF YOU LIVED HERE, I'D KNOW YOUR NAME: News from Small-Town Alaska HEATHER LENDE. Algonquin, $23.95 (296p) ISBN 1-56512-316-6

Lende chronicles the various lives and deaths of the people of Haines, Alaska, an almost inaccessible hamlet 90 miles north of Juneau. In writing her social and obituary columns for Haines's Chilkat Valley News--some of which are included here--she blends reportage and humor. Lende has lived in Haines all her adult life and is well-known in town. She deftly illuminates local color: the sewer plant manager who rides a motorcycle and sports a ZZ Top beard, the high school principal who moonlights as a Roy Orbison impersonator, and the …