Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

It may feel good to the conscience to read the tragic story of A Good Neighborhood. It’s not about a hero with a fatal flaw but about the lack of power of ethnic minorities. By reading this account, the upper middle class reader can feel that she’s experienced catharsis—purged of the feeling of guilt for traditional racial oppression. And, without divulging plot spoilers, there is admittedly a lot to admire in A Good Neighborhood; the mining of a traditional art form (Greek tragedy), foreshadowing mixed with surprising plot developments and literary and cultural allusions that are apropos. But one must finally conclude that A Good Neighborhood is not a book that is going to help the healing of racial injustice in America. Apart from a few details the story is incredibly cliched; the rich white man who assumes a black neighbor is a handyman and the formerly poverty stricken wife who cannot admit that her husband is attracted to his own stepdaughter. It’s a book that simply repeats the standard liberal view of the South and its racial/socioeconomic problems as much as Fox News seems to have crimes by undocumented immigrants on endless replay. Simply repeating one side’s perspective—even as artfully as Therese Anne Fowler—doesn’t really advance the dialogue. It just makes one side feel unrepresented and the other self-satisfied. The contemporary reader deserves a more nuanced and original contribution to America’s quest to see beyond the color of a person’s skin. It may feel good to look down on the antagonists in this novel, but do we really need another variation on the same woke theme? A Good Neighborhood is not a dialogue between respectful opposing perspectives but mere hectoring that is more likely to lead to smug consciences than real change.