A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne

 

I listened to the audiobook of A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne when all of my podcasts failed to release new material during Thanksgiving week. Hey, podcasters. I know you want to spend time with your families and all, but I still have to walk the dog EVERY DAY, even when you are putting out repeats in my feed or just taking a week off. Did you ever think about me and my needs? (Just kidding. Of course people should take time off.) This book won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 1999, so I was expecting really good things from it.

Marsha was 12 in the summer of 1978, living in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Crime was everywhere. The president was a crook. Her older brother was stealing cigarettes from a local store. Her father cheated on her mother. The new neighbor next door was a weirdo. And then the annoying kid from down the street was murdered in the woods just outside the mall.

I admire how seamlessly Berne weaves the history and the minutiae of daily life in the suburbs into this story. The strange new acceptance of divorce and what it was doing to the family structure. The suburban housewives who existed on gossip and innuendo. The poor single guy who is new in town and never accepted. The unsupervised children disemboweling insects and telling lies. The sprinklers, the bake sales, and the smoking.

And I think it's an interesting take on crime and what the crime in the neighborhood really is. I mean, the murder of the kid is the most obvious crime, but the real crime is that it's never solved and the family of the victim is forced to move town. And it's a crime that Marsha's father leaves the household that summer with no communication about when he's returning. It's a crime that the single guy next door becomes an outcast. It's a crime that Marsha's mom loses her support system in the divorce. What's the biggest crime? That's what Berne is examining.

But it's really not that interesting in many ways. Outside of the cool details about surburbia, it's a straightforward coming of age story. Marsha wants to be a detective and solve the murder, but she's an unreliable narrator. Marsha wants to be well-liked among her friends, but she's not the right age and she's a liar and her storytelling turns them off. 

I thought this book was fine and I enjoyed listening to it as Hannah and I hiked around endlessly trying to burn off her energy. But I'm not sure why it won this prize, to be perfectly honest.

3.5/5 stars