We think we know our friends and neighbors. We chat on the street while our kids ride bikes. Or get together for coffee and gossip. The men slap each other’s backs and talk sports. But what goes on behind closed doors, after pleasantries have been shared and doors locked up for the night, is often unknown. This is the premise of Good Neighbors, a taut and emotion-packed novel about neighborhood dynamics and parenting styles and how we pretend to be something we’re not.
Good Neighbors
Author Joanne Serling hints at the drama to unfold with the title of the prologue, What We Thought We Knew. Nicole, the narrator, is married with two children and lives in an upscale suburb. She treasures the close friendships she and her husband have with the families in three nearby homes.
The four couples are inseparable, spending time together at dinner parties and Halloween get-togethers and casual barbecues. They even take vacations together along with their small children. How lucky they were, Nicole thought, to be this close, like families, really better than families that come with sticky and unresolvable tensions.
Paige and Gene Edwards, the family next door, are the epitome of classiness and success. Nicole admires Paige as a fashion and design guru, always beautifully dressed, with the most perfect home. Nicole aspires to be as put together as Paige.
When Paige and Gene announce they are adopting a four-year old child from Russia, Nicole and the other women are privately shocked by this development and wonder why the couple has gone the adoption route. Nonetheless, Nicole happily welcomes little Winnie to their social constellation and tries to get to know her by inviting her over to play with her children. Winnie speaks no English and is shy but charming, and Nicole warms up to her right away.
Life seems to go along perfectly. Until cracks in the Edwards fortress begin to reveal otherwise.
Something is disturbingly wrong. Nicole is unnerved by several incidents in which Winnie seems distressed or hurt. Is it Paige’s parenting skills? Paige becomes reclusive, withdrawing for days or even weeks, only to reappear nonchalantly, as if everything was normal. But then she speaks openly about Winnie’s special needs and how hard it has been for the family to cope with.
Nicole feels an uneasiness that she tries to suppress. They are good neighbors, after all. Should she keep up the appearance of being a supportive friend? Or intervene, as her instincts are telling her to?
As the tension builds, you feel Nicole’s mounting dread, and your heart begins to thump along with hers.
Truly a stunning debut novel, Good Neighbors might make you question your own response if you suspected malfeasance. Would you say something? Or would you turn your head the other way?
A commentary on modern society as well as a very engaging page turner, Good Neighbors is a thought-provoking examination of social mores and personal insecurities. Serling has a unique writing style, liberally employing sentence fragments and exclamation points that might be a reflection of the narrator’s lifestyle as a busy, distracted mom and a worried neighbor, not to mention the object of aggravation by her resentful mother and alcoholic adult sister whose phone calls she hates to pick up.
I received a copy of Good Neighbors from Hachette for an honest review,
which is the only kind of review I write.
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