Customer Reviews

A Crime in the Neighborhood

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As another author, I would highly recommend Suzanne Berne's novel under any circumstances. A Crime in the Neighborhood is subtle, stylish, and memorable, without any self-conscious literary histrionics. I read it two years ago and still remember scenes and lines of dialogue vividly.

The fact that I knew Berne in college may have influenced me to pick up the book in the first place, but had nothing to do with keeping it in my hands. This is a page-turner for people who actually know how to read.

Which is why I'd also like to respond to some of the more suspiciously negative comments posted here. It seems perfectly obvious that several of these reviews have been written by the same person using different addresses. The dead give-away is that the word "sleeper" is misused over and over to denote boredom rather than to indicate an unexpected pleasure, as is the common usage. Whoever is doing this probably spends most of his or her time alone in a small dark room.

They should find better things to do with themselves there.

A contemporary poet asked, "What is our innocence, what is our guilt?" Echoes of that question reverberate throughout Suzanne Berne's deeply affecting first novel, A Crime In The Neighborhood.

In the hands of a less perceptive writer, the crime would be the rape/murder of a young boy in a peaceful suburb of Washington, D.C. during the summer of 1972. However, that is only one of the offenses recorded in copious notes kept by Marsha, the story's 10-year-old narrator.

Described as "one of those little girls who never said much but who was always there," Marsha is a reticent child, an inveterate observer of events that have shaken her once secure existence. Infrequently tolerated, often deprecated by her older brother and sister, twins, who shoot Marsha's questions back at her with acid mimicry, she turns to obsessively writing in her "Evidence notebook."

Lois, her mother, is one of four sisters raised by a widowed mother and grandmother who "took in sewing, did some typing" and ate corn flakes for dinner. The sisters, known as the Mayhew girls, were intensely loyal to one another. Out of necessity they wore underwear made out of old linen pillowcases, out of experiencethey deemed men lacking in character and strength.

Thus, a vital bond is severed when Lois learns that her husband is having an affair with her youngest sister, Ada. A wrenching betrayal, it is all the more painful because Lois believed in Ada "as one trusts someone fully comprehended," while her husband's infidelity was something "she had more or less expected."

The other two sisters soon arrive for a visit. If they cannot effect a reconciliation, they hope to at least understand. Their convergence only adds confusion to Marsha's topsy-turvy world: "Suddenly our house filled with raspy whispering female voices, a sibilant, maddening sound to a child who is afraid to know why her father drives off to work red-eyed every morning, while her mother spends her mornings vacuuming ferociously..."

As her personal drama is played against the background of the Watergate break-ins, Marsha wonders if the entire world has gone awry. Her father and Ada run away together, and she witnesses her brother shoplifting a carton of cigarettes from the mall drugstore. She duly notes infractions of both global magnitude and yard sale insignificance in her "Evidence notebook." "A kind of lawlessness infected everything," Berne writes, "... eight-year-old Luann Lauder decorated herself with toothpaste one Sunday morning and ran across the lawn in only her underpants." When a Mr. Green moves in next door, Marsha dismisses him as inconsequential. He is balding, perhaps 45. And, as she carefully pens while watching him build a barbecue pit, he has a bare-breasted maiden tatoo "just below the shoulder, where his bicep bunched."

As the torpid summer progresses, Marsha connects the young boy's murder, Watergate, and her father's departure. These events are opaque yet related in her mind. While present, her mother is remote, struggling to survive by selling magazine subscriptions. "My father left to find himself," we read, "and a child got lost." Perhaps the lost child is both the murdered boy and the bereft Marsha.

When the twins are visiting friends, Marsha searches their rooms. Finding a foil packeted condom under her brother's bed, she takes the "pale balloon" and drops it on the sidewalk in front of Mr. Green's house. She tells her mother that their new neighbor is disgusting, weird, that he "looks" at her.

Deftly moving the narrative to its inexorable conclusion, the author writes of Marsha, "Once I have lied, I've propelled myself into a story that has its own momentum. It's not that I convince myself that I'm telling the truth, it's that the truth becomes flexible."

As the story closes, Marsha is an adult. She reviews the events of that summer, wondering what makes people hurt each other, what makes them need to be cruel. "Like pictures from a flickering projector" scenes from the past appear to her. As she says, "...they are always there...they are what I have."

In A Crime In The Neighborhood what the reader has is a spare yet richly detailed exposition, a sensitive rendering of the human heart. With Marsha, the author has created a child we will not soon forget because Marsha may speak for the child in all of us.

I am about 2/3 thru' this book and am already looking forward to reading "A Perfect Arrangement" also by this author.

Yes, there are faint echoes of Anne Tyler here, but I think that rests more in the setting & characters rather than the actual writing.

From the opening page, I found myself absorbed in the ensuing story, finding it deceptively accessible yet very well written.

As with another reviewer, I laughed until I choked at the description of the "sordid exploits" of Roy and Tiffany - the modified Barbies belonging to the 8 year old girl next door. Maybe I was a strange child, but together with my best friend, my dolls engaged in some strange activities too!

As I am reading, the book is moving into darker territory with allegations being made against an innocent(?) neighbour and I'm sensing that things will get very ugly indeed.

But still, it's a book that I hated being wrenched away from when my lunchbreak was over.

...there are usually all sorts of things going on. Suzanne Berg's gently compelling novel A CRIME IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD is set in the early 1970s -- Nixon is in the White House, Watergate is a breaking story. People are beginning to see the cracks in the feet of the statues of their leaders -- they are beginning to see that the world is not the idyllic place they have enjoyed imagining during the 50s and 60s. It is becoming real -- and it is beginning to intrude into their daily lives.

The novel is told from the point of view of Marsha Eberhardt -- a ten year-old girl with an older brother and sister (twins) who torment her (isn't that included in the 'job descriptions' of older siblings?); a mother who is intelligent but wearing blinders, scrambling to find her place in life; and a father who has pretty much stepped out of the family picture, having an affair and running off with his wife's sister. Combine all of these emotional drains with the general 'responsibilities' of being a ten year-old girl and the fact that the tranquility of their 'Leave it to Beaver' type neighborhood has just been shattered by the molestation and murder of a young boy, and life-changing circumstances are geared into motion.

Marsha's story is told by her adult self, looking back over the span of 25 years or so at the events that formed her outlook on the world -- and at the way she perceived them, and the way that there perceptions guided them along. As much as a look at the events themselves and how they played out -- and there is indeed a palpable aura of mystery here -- the novel addresses the way we respond to events that occur around us, and how the responses we form affect not only our lives but the lives of those around us. Yes, that's right, there's a moral dilemma/lesson to be had here, but not to worry -- Berne's skill and empathy for her characters, as well as her respect for them and for her readers, keeps this from becoming in any way 'preachy'. This is a compelling, intelligent story -- and it's one that will be as relevant for years to come as it is for us today.

Gosh -- writing that's intelligent, a bit of a learning experience, and entertaining all at the same time. Not a bad way to spend some reading time. Highly recommended.

A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne is not so much about the crime but what it represents to the book's nine year old protaganist, Marsha. Her whole world is crumbling from the micro-situation of her father deserting the family to the macro-situation of the sitting President (the book is set in 1973). It is a marvelous portrayal of this little girl and how she tries to control the one thing in her world she thinks she can control, solving the murder of a twelve year old boy. It is chilling to see how something so innocent and Nancy Drewish to this girl becomes so frightening as false accusations change the neighborhood and destroy lives. Those looking for a mystery with a solution will be dissappointed but those looking for a more complicated portrayal of childhood should be delighted with this book.

While I did finish this book, It never had a climax...it just went and went and went without a rise and fall :(. This book could have been soo much better if it just had something dramatic happen towards the end of the book. Anything would have been better, then nothing ever happening! And I would have liked to know more about Mr. Green at the end of the book, like how did he get that mermaid tatoo after all?!

So well written and unusual. If you enjoy Elizabeth Berg books, you should like this one. The story is told from the viewpoint of a young, imaginative girl. It captures the feeling of life in the 60's and 70's, a time when our world was changing and becoming less innocent. This book takes you back to that time--right between childhood and maturity when we examined and tried to interpret the world around us without completely understanding motivations (but thought that we did). It's what you may mean when you say, "If I knew then what I know now..."

It is 1972 in typical suburban America. Politicians in the daily papers include George McGovern, Spiro Agnew, George Wallace and of course Richard Nixon. The Watergate Hotel is on the verge of becoming national symbol of deceit. On an average summer's day in an average middle-class Maryland neighborhood, a 12-year-old boy is brutally murdered. The murder itself is not the story, however. What happens in its aftermath; fear, mistrust, and the tidal wave of tragedy following a little girl's lie, is. Reminiscent of the destruction via perfidious gossip in THE CHILDREN'S HOUR or the Puritanical vigilantes in THE CRUCIBLE. Suzanne Berne transforms the safe haven of this All-American neighborhood into a wasteland of ruined lives. Remorse comes far too late. A clever first novel, certainly symbolic of the times, but hardly an uplifting read.

In A Crime in the Neighborhood, Suzanne Berne creates a realistic world as seen through the eyes of a ten year old child, Marsha. With a voice similar to Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, Suzanne successfully draws and maintains the reader's attention throughout the novel. With expertise the author intertwines sexuality and period social norms to create complete characters that, more often than not, may resemble someone in our own neighborhood.
Marsha, a daddy's girl, has always awoken to her dad drinking his coffee and reading the newspaper. This picture-perfect world soon crumbles when her father runs off with her mother's sister Ada. Marsha blames all that ensues on the departure of her father. Soon after her mom becomes a neat-freak, her older twin siblings steal cigarettes, a bully in her neighborhood is raped and killed, and a creepy neighbor moves in next door. In the final pages, after Sherlock Holmes-esque detective work, Marsha claims to know the murderer and reveals all. Sadly no relationships mend as expected, but hey, real life takes many paths.
Berne writes her book to educate the reader. With themes of sex and 70's gender roles, she covers a wide array of interests that makes her book marketable and enjoyed to the masses. The characters Berne depicts are comfortable with themselves sexually which makes for some humorous passages for the reader. The ever-curious Marsha spies on her aunts undressing at one point: "Aunt Claire smiled as she pulled off her blouse. She wasn't wearing a brassiere at all. Instead of the two cones I'd been expecting, a pair of small, flattened-looking eyes confronted me, oatmeal-colored save for the brown, protruding, button iris(26)". This is where Marsha differs from Scout Finch. Scout was curious with what went on in the world around her, whereas Marsha focused on what happened behind closed doors. The most sexually embracing character, hands down, is Luann. She entertains herself with hermaphrodite, or "confused", Barbies who have sex. Some readers may find this type of material offensive, but personally I laughed. Passages like these balance the ominous parts of this novel that deal with the killing of an undeserving child. I cannot understand the presence of Luann, or the underlying tones of sex in A Crime in the Neighborhood, other than that these ideas might reflect the changing times of American culture, and highlight the sexual affair within the novel.
Gender roles of the 70's are blatantly explicit in this novel, educating the reader of societal changes over the past three decades. At a time when single-parent families were uncommon, the neighbors felt uncomfortable around Marsha's family and even with their single neighbor Mr. Green. The men-folk of the street had no shame in knocking on Mr. Green's door and informing him that this was a "family neighborhood" (251). It surprised me that singleness was looked down upon, even when in all other aspects Mr. Green was a near perfect neighbor. Also typical of 70's life was the sole provider. The men brought home the dough so to speak, while the women raised the kids. Some people argue that our society has changed for the worse, but I beg to differ. Growing up in a family where both parents work, or at times just my mom, I can appreciate these social revolutions.
I could not get enough of Suzanne Berne's writing techniques. She utilized metaphors like crazy, played with the reader's emotions, and kept a strong voice throughout, all qualities characteristic of great writers. People's yards became "lit-up pools of lawn" (69), and Mr. Green's car was a "boatlike Dodge anchored in the driveway" (67). Phrases like these flooded my mind with images, drawing me deeper into the realistic landscape of Berne's D.C. street. Unfortunately these metaphorical expressions halted midway through the novel, but were replaced by color repetition instead. Everything in the second half of the novel related to the color orange. There were orange balloons, orange sodas, orange muumuus, orange coals, orange Kool-Aid...orange, orange, orange. Maybe my brain is just twisted, but I think the color orange has some hidden meaning; whatever it is, Berne keeps it hidden from the reader.
Suzanne Berne left questions unanswered that seemed important to the plot, leaving me, and I'm sure countless others, with an unnerving sense of incompletion. I was left wondering if the twins ever talked to Marsha, what happened to the other sisters, did Lois remarry, etc. In my opinion this was the novel's major flaw.
What Berne lacked in completion, she made up for in voice. To have the narration be in the voice of a child was proven successful in To Kill a Mockingbird; it worked here magnificently. Children have a way of seeing the world in a completely different way. Evident on page 107 is Marsha's naivety. "[Boyd Ellison] has gotten lost...Who had lost the child...Could you lose a child the same way you could lose the car keys?" Understandably, at age 10, Marsha doesn't quite grasp the concept of death, and Berne captures her innocence, which is amusing, ignoring the circumstances of course. Unlike the format of To Kill a Mockingbird, Berne chooses to intersperse the adult voice of Marsha more frequently, which causes confusion at first until the reader is able to distinguish the two voices. Once discernible, the additional perspective adds another informative and intriguing layer to the story.
In her story of the changing times for one neighborhood, contemporary author Suzanne Berne creates believable characters that one might expect a nosy phone call from. A Crime in the Neighborhood blends time-proven writing styles with modern situations to take the reader on a journey through a decade unknown to many youth while maintaining a humorous, informative, and easy to read format. I doubt this book will become a classic, but it definitely mocks one. Here again the voice of a child captures an audience of adults.

A Crime in the Neighborhood is a thoroughly enjoyable coming of age story with a twist. While this is not a "whodunnit" (and those of you looking for one will be disappointed), a murder does figure prominently in the storyline. Our story takes place in 1972 with 10 year old Marsha narrating. Her father has run off with her Aunt, her mother is at her wits end, her twin siblings are getting into trouble, and a neighborhood boy has been murdered. I could especially relate to the time and feel of this story as I too was a ten year old girl in 1972. I remember just as in the novel when everyone knew their neighbors and no one locked their doors. But times are changing and the murder signals an end of innocence in Marsha's life and the world around her. This is a well written story with an extremely realistic feel; I could picture this neighborhood so clearly in my head it was as if I had actually been there. Seek this novel out, it's well worth your time to read.