Two years ago Suzanne Goldsmith, a young Harvard-educated reporter, signed on for her own "season of service" with City Year, the widely praised. Boston-based community service program frequently endorsed by President Clinton as a model for the nation.

A City Year is the story of that year - an honest and gritty account of the triumphs and setbacks faced by an idealistic and experimental social program in its infancy.

Together with a diverse team of young men and women - including a Burmese immigrant, a white prep-school graduate, a foster child, an ex-convict, and a black middle class college student - Goldsmith helped renovate a building for the homeless, tutored school children, reclaimed a community garden from drug dealers, and organized a community street-cleaning day.

The year included backbreaking but gratifying work, the sense of family that comes from collaborative labor, and the potential strength of diversity. It also involved an unwanted pregnancy, financial troubles, and arrests. One team member was shot to death; another ended up in jail. A City Year is, in part, the story of an uphill battle in urban America, in part, an uplifting recipe for social change.

As the Clinton administration considers public service for all young Americans, and with people as diverse as Sam Nunn, Robert Coles, and William F. Buckley, Jr., endorsing national service, A City Year offers the first true glimpse of what a "season of service" really means.