While I was reading Therese Anne Fowler’s contemporary novel A Good Neighborhood, it felt like a very simple story, but there is so much going on, it’s going to make a great book club selection! Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley, I stayed up late into the night to find out WTH was going to happen after receiving a copy in exchange for my honest review.
The story focuses on two families, next door neighbors in a “good neighborhood” in North Carolina. Valerie Alston-Holt, an African-American professor at the university, lives with her biracial son Xavier on property that includes a huge, old, amazing oak tree, which Valerie has loved since she and her tall, blond husband Tom moved in when Xavier was a toddler. Tom died when “Zay” was very young, and Valerie has raised her son to be a great student, a kind soul, and a sensitive kid who is also popular, a good student, and a talented musician. The land next door to the Alston-Holt house has been cleared (to Valerie’s dismay) to make way for a McMansion, built by the nouveau riche Brad Whitman for his “girls,” including his wife Julia, their young daughter Lily, and teenage Juniper, from Julia’s life pre-Brad.
The narrator of the story is an unidentified neighbor, who provides a perspective that is outside either of the families, and gives both facts and opinions about the twin troubles that develop with increasing intensity as the story unfolds: the tree and the romance. The tree is that amazing oak, which Valerie is devastated to see is dying as a result of the construction next door, and the romance is between Xavier and lily-white Juniper, who is not only secretly troubled but also has taken a “Purity Pledge” with her stepfather, vowing to remain a virgin until he gives her away in marriage. The young lovers’ romance is sweet and tender, with a bit of danger thrown in (especially as Brad is revealed ever so slowly and carefully to be an incredible pig).
At first, there is just an inkling of looming bad feelings as Valerie decides to sue Brad and the builder – and an inkling of creepy stepdad as Juniper becomes a beautiful young woman. I HAD to keep reading until I was done, because the outside narrator had made it clear that SOMETHING big was going to happen, with the tree, the romance, or both.
As the story unfolds, issues of race, class, and political divisions provide lots of thought-provoking topics that book clubs will love. I hadn’t read any of Ms. Fowler’s prior books, but she is clearly a skilled storyteller who will likely have a bestseller with A Good Neighborhood. Five stars.