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This is a fascinating cross-genre book. I read it knowing very little about it, not even the premise. This was a very fun way to read it, if I can call a book this tense and stressful fun, as it has a number of startling turns.
If you'd potentially like to have that experience, I will say that Good Neighbors has aspects of domestic suspense, literary fiction, science fiction, epistolatory fiction, and horror. It involves rot and feuding under the surface of the suburban lifestyle, and is set in a very near future in which climate change is even worse than it is now but lifestyles continue in a pretty similar manner. I would classify it primarily as mainstream literature, but that mostly has to do with an indefinable feel.
The book that comes to mind as being in the same genre is Rumaan Alam's Leave This World Behind. However, Langan's likable characters were much, much more likable than his, and her style was much more enjoyable to read than his. (His book is very good, but not enjoyable per se.)
The other thing you probably want to know before diving in is that Good Neighbors involves both actual child abuse and false allegations of child abuse.
Spoilers for the premise and the first few chapters lurk beneath the cut.
Before the first chapter, we get several items:
- an excerpt from a nonfiction book written about twenty years after the events of Good Neighbors, which says that the neighborhood conspired to murder the entire Wilde family, and that these events became a pop-culture phenomenon and even inspired a Broadway musical.
- a map of the area, showing who lives where.
- an alarmingly large cast of characters of everyone who lives in the neighborhood, with the total number of inhabitants listed at the end (72).
Then we get chapter one, in which the Wilde family, new arrivals to the neighborhood, see literally everyone heading to the park with potluck dishes. On the impression that they didn't get invited by accident, they show up. This is very awkward, as they had not been invited on purpose--which the neighborhood queen bee, Rhea Schroeder and their next-door neighbor, rather shockingly confesses to Gertie Wilde's face.
At which point a gigantic sinkhole opens up and swallows up a dog.
For the rest of the book the sinkhole continues to be a huge presence, growing and swallowing up animals and people, and oozing asphalt all over the neighborhood. The sinkhole is a powerful symbol of the rot beneath the surface, but it also functions as a science fictional/horror plot element. My favorite chapter, which has a surreal and horrific beauty reminiscent of the movie Annihilation, involves a trip into it.
As the sinkhole grows bigger and bigger, and more and more alarming events occur, we periodically get new maps and casts of characters. The population diminishes at a darkly comic rate as the doom we know is looming over the Wildes inches closer and closer.
Good Neighbors is not a cheerful book and has a lot of tragedy, but it also has a surprisingly hopeful angle, which is the teenager and child characters. Some terrible things happen to some of them, and some of them do some bad things, but overall, the kids are all right. In fact, a number of them are extremely heroic. It doesn't really fix things, but given the general moral awfulness of many of the adult characters, their children leave you feeling hopeful. These are the people who will be inheriting the earth. It's a very damaged earth, but despite enormous pressure, they're already making better choices.
Content notes: dead dog, dead animals, child abuse, child death, violence, scapegoating.
If you'd potentially like to have that experience, I will say that Good Neighbors has aspects of domestic suspense, literary fiction, science fiction, epistolatory fiction, and horror. It involves rot and feuding under the surface of the suburban lifestyle, and is set in a very near future in which climate change is even worse than it is now but lifestyles continue in a pretty similar manner. I would classify it primarily as mainstream literature, but that mostly has to do with an indefinable feel.
The book that comes to mind as being in the same genre is Rumaan Alam's Leave This World Behind. However, Langan's likable characters were much, much more likable than his, and her style was much more enjoyable to read than his. (His book is very good, but not enjoyable per se.)
The other thing you probably want to know before diving in is that Good Neighbors involves both actual child abuse and false allegations of child abuse.
Spoilers for the premise and the first few chapters lurk beneath the cut.
Before the first chapter, we get several items:
- an excerpt from a nonfiction book written about twenty years after the events of Good Neighbors, which says that the neighborhood conspired to murder the entire Wilde family, and that these events became a pop-culture phenomenon and even inspired a Broadway musical.
- a map of the area, showing who lives where.
- an alarmingly large cast of characters of everyone who lives in the neighborhood, with the total number of inhabitants listed at the end (72).
Then we get chapter one, in which the Wilde family, new arrivals to the neighborhood, see literally everyone heading to the park with potluck dishes. On the impression that they didn't get invited by accident, they show up. This is very awkward, as they had not been invited on purpose--which the neighborhood queen bee, Rhea Schroeder and their next-door neighbor, rather shockingly confesses to Gertie Wilde's face.
At which point a gigantic sinkhole opens up and swallows up a dog.
For the rest of the book the sinkhole continues to be a huge presence, growing and swallowing up animals and people, and oozing asphalt all over the neighborhood. The sinkhole is a powerful symbol of the rot beneath the surface, but it also functions as a science fictional/horror plot element. My favorite chapter, which has a surreal and horrific beauty reminiscent of the movie Annihilation, involves a trip into it.
As the sinkhole grows bigger and bigger, and more and more alarming events occur, we periodically get new maps and casts of characters. The population diminishes at a darkly comic rate as the doom we know is looming over the Wildes inches closer and closer.
Good Neighbors is not a cheerful book and has a lot of tragedy, but it also has a surprisingly hopeful angle, which is the teenager and child characters. Some terrible things happen to some of them, and some of them do some bad things, but overall, the kids are all right. In fact, a number of them are extremely heroic. It doesn't really fix things, but given the general moral awfulness of many of the adult characters, their children leave you feeling hopeful. These are the people who will be inheriting the earth. It's a very damaged earth, but despite enormous pressure, they're already making better choices.
Content notes: dead dog, dead animals, child abuse, child death, violence, scapegoating.
