Suzanne Berne

This was a great read. A seemingly idyllic suburban community is fractured by a fight over a dog park and the ensuing poisoning of dogs. It's about so much more than that, though - primarily the hollowness of such towns and the dissatisfaction felt by people who appear to have everything going for them. There are echoes of John Cheever in that, along with the humor and sharp observation of Elinor Lipman, plus a dash of Stephen King (psychological unease King, not horror King). The novel is show more well-paced and peopled with interesting characters.

4 stars show less

The framing device for this novel is the brutal rape and murder of a young boy in a suburban neighborhood, which is never solved. But what the book really is about are the fundamental changes our “safe” middle-class world went through in the 1970s, including divorce, senseless crime and the encroachment of the outside world on the suburban cocoons we had built for ourselves. This small, quiet novel paints a portrait of these changes in deft, succinct strokes.

It was difficult to keep the events in order. Things skipped around a lot and I never knew the chronological order of things. At the same time, it worked because it's told from the POV of a woman remembering events from when she was 9 years old. Memories don't necessarily work how we want them to.

A well-written social satire that is strong on description, lovely prose and wonderful characters...and a little light on plot. It's taken me a long time to write this review - so much, that I had to reread the book again. (Fine, I had to finish the book. It took longer than anticipated to finish it.)

There WERE lovely characters - but there were also a lot of them, and because of it, I didn't get to know them as well as I'd like, and I wanted more of them. There were an extraordinary amount show more of therapists and psychologists (and the expected college professors) for the college town, but they didn't seem...invested enough. Or perhaps that is all part of the tale, but I needed more.

The writing was wonderful, and that is why i finished it. But it took a while to get there.... show less