Thy Neighbor: A Novel [Hardcover]

Try to sum up this book. Go ahead and just try.

A guy whose parents died in a murder-suicide sits in his house, spying on his neighbors, and comes to discover that he is being watched? That's certainly part of it. A man learns to come to terms with his dark past and discover that the gene pool does not have to dictate who he becomes? Sort of. Sometimes everyone in a family can love the same person? Yes, in a way, but ...

Let's start with the basics. Nick Walsh festers, whether alone in his home, studying his neighbors via spy cameras he had installed in their homes, or in the local bar, where he drinks too much. Nick drinks too much at home as well, but can you blame him? There was the murder-suicide of his parents, after all. His one friend is a loathsome creature, and his few human relationships are a study in dysfunction. The one constant he has are those monitors trained on his neighbors. We know Nick needs to be rousted from his miasmatic existence, even if he seems a bit resigned to it.

There is a woman in his life, the elusive Monica, who comes and goes as she pleases. I would not call theirs a romance, but it isn't merely friendship or adversarial, either. For the most part, Nick is blithely uncurious about Monica; when he finally decides he wants to know her better, he is unprepared for what she is willing to divulge to him.

As Nick observes about himself: "I have only an idea of a person, even the person that I call myself. That's all. And when I love another person, or think I do, it is only the idea of that person that I love, and it is only the idea of me that is doing the loving. ... Show me where love is, where it exists, and I will show you a cerebral circuit board of signals and crossed wires. Saying you are in love with a person is like saying you are in love with a radio, or a TV, the box itself, not the broadcast coming from it, which is always hopelessly muddled anyway with the broadcast that is coming from yourself."

Nick unwittingly sets forth his inner turmoil, although he clearly is not aware that he has such self-knowledge. Monica pushes and pushes him to give up that "broadcast" that flits within him, but he does not. In Nick's case, it is not an issue of won't, but an issue of can't. He is not ready to face his parents' death and the ramifications of it, nor is he ready to admit his own failings, separate from dear old Mom and Dad.

This is not an easy or simple book to read. It is very complex, both in Nick's creation and portrayal, and in its supporting characters. When Nick befriends an elderly neighbor across the street, it is clear that he has found someone more complex than himself. Then there is the young girl he allows into his life. She breaches a sort of lingering childhood innocence in him; Nick responds by alternately pushing and pulling her away from and into his life.

There is a considerable amount of conversation, both internal and those Nick shares with us. A lot of contemplation goes on. For the most part, Nick's observations are interesting and thought provoking. Some are just annoying and ridiculous.

Overall, Thy Neighbor is pretty good. It is not a book I care to read again, only because when I finished it, it left a ponderous sensation. Yet it did make me think, and some of Norah Vincent's lines are meant to be debated.

Published on cupcake's book cupboard. @VivaAmaRisata
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview

Unsurprisingly, the subtlety and beauty of this book is going to be lost on a lot of people, mostly because the narrator is so abrasive and unpleasant at first--he's morbidly self-absorbed and he tells it like it is in harsh language, flat out and in your face--and interestingly, I think readers don't take this nearly so well coming from a female writer. Chuck Palahniuk and Brett Easton Ellis have gotten away with a lot channeling some pretty unpleasant narrators, but that doesn't seem to have held them back. This guy is certainly no worse, and as time goes on, he proves himself to be deeply insightful, sensitive complex and compassionate. A fully realized individual good, bad and ugly.

People who are out for an easy escapist read will have to work for their entertainment on this one. It's there big time if you're a little patient. The book is a fiendishly well plotted mystery from start to finish, and accelerates to a breakneck pace by the end. But it's also darkly comic as well as brutally tragic and relentless. You're gonna squirm, I guarantee it. It's emotionally challenging on many levels. It's also full of literary inside jokes and allusions--everything from Joyce's Ulysses, from which the central character takes her name (Bloom) and the date of the most significant day of her life--Bloomsday, July 16th--to Shakespeare's Henry IV, Othello, the Tempest, Hamlet, Dante's Inferno and Robert Frost's famous sonnet 'The Silken Tent.' It will push just about every button you have and every boundary you're comfortable with, but you'll come away with a hell of a lot to think about, and you won't be able to get it out of your head.

One thing I can say for sure about this narrator and his story--love him or hate him, you'll never be bored. This story is like Disturbia meets American Beauty meets Little Children and it's better than all three. You'll laugh out loud and you might very possibly cry. In my book, that's saying something.

This was a bleak, and ultimately pointless book. None of the characters acted like anyone I've met on this planet and were by and large repulsive people. The dialogue between the mother and father especially, seemed forced,and unrealistic. I kept waiting for some insight and something I could relate to as a human being, and was absolutely disappointed. I can't imagine family members ever reacting to the death of a loved one as two characters in this book do. Overall, it seemed like another cliched portrait of soul-less suburbia, when actually it was the author's writing that lacked soul, and color, and life. After the first few pages I rushed through the book to get it over with. I'm sorry I spent that long with it.