Neighbors - Thomas Berger

NEIGHBORS is a black comedy about Earl Keese, a regular suburbanite whose world is overturned when Harry and Ramona move into the house next door. Harry and Ramona instantly unsettle the staid Earl with their abrupt mannerisms, their disturbing wolfhound and their dangerous schemes. Earl's suspicions about the couple's lack of stability and normalcy are ignored by his wife, Enid, and his daughter, Elaine, even while he is concerned that they are all being negatively affected by their relationships with the neighbours. Ramona is by turns seductive and manipulative with Earl while Harry is threatening and confrontational, upending Earl's carefully constructed world of social values and neighbourliness. The novel culminates in a night of recriminations, explanations, and discussions that leads to Earl abandoning his family and his old life and taking to the road with Harry and Ramona. Or so he thinks. Thomas Berger creates a creepy suburban nightmare but does so with humour and light touch intact. He explores the complex relationship between, as he puts it, 'the kicker and the kickee'.