Thy Neighbor

June 11, 2012
In Vincent’s disappointing fiction debut, narrator Nick, equally misanthropic and self-hating, drinks all night and feels sorry for himself all day (“Depressed? Destroyed? Crushed beneath the boot heel of fate? Why, yes. I suppose so”)—not without cause, perhaps, considering the horrific family crime that derailed his comfortable suburban existence more than a decade ago. He continues to reside in the home in which the crime happened, and to distract himself from his misery, he enlists a cable TV installer to plant hidden recording equipment in his ill-behaved neighbors’ bedrooms, bathrooms, and anywhere else that might provide a chance for Nick to see something awful (which, of course, he does). When Nick, desperate to get out of his own head, befriends his one decent neighbor, Mrs. Bloom, a widow with no family who suffered a tragedy years ago, he discovers the heartbreaking event that links her life and his. But what part in all this does the dangerously unhappy family next door play? We’ll have to wait and see. Vincent’s prose is choppy and overwrought, the characters for the most part unpleasant. This is a disappointing foray into psychological fiction from a journalist known for the high-concept nonfiction books Self-Made Man and Voluntary Madness.

August 1, 2012
For any reader still suffering from the delusion that suburbia is Eden, this debut novel explores the sinister side, where "a dark shadow lay just on the other side of the picket fence." Though Vincent has attracted attention with her nonfiction (Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man, 2006, etc.), this book will challenge the reader to get a handle on just what sort of novel it is, and it reads as if its author wrestled with a similar challenge. At its most cliched, it's a social indictment of modern suburbia--its broken families, its secrets behind those manicured lawns, its desperate promiscuity, its obsession with Facebook. But it's also a whodunit, or at least a whydunit, as narrator Nick Walsh, an alcoholic, unemployed writer in his mid-30s, attempts to solve the mystery of his parents' murder-suicide. Why did Nick's father kill his mother and then himself? Was the unhinged Nick more responsible than he lets on, or even understands? Is he criminal or casualty or both? Nick identifies a little too much with Hamlet, while recognizing that "Any spoiled kid who has a vaguely philosophical bent, serious daddy issues, and a bleak outlook on life has thought of himself as Hamlet and thought himself mighty profound and soulful for doing so." The novel (or Nick) tends to deal in generalizations and stereotypes ("You know the breed."), while reducing practically every supporting character to a plot device. "How many horrible things are going on right now in any one of these houses?" he asks, though he is in a better position than most to know, since he has had cameras and microphones installed in the houses of his neighbors, which he monitors from his basement (again, more plot device than plausible). Ultimately, another mystery emerges, though the savvy reader is likely to untangle a crucial question of identity well before clueless Nick does. The results fall through the categorical cracks, with the book succeeding neither as page-turning mystery nor as sharp social criticism.

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March 1, 2012

At 34, Nick Walsh still lives in his Midwest suburban childhood home--though his parents died violently 13 years earlier and he's been self-medicating since. As he spies on his neighbors, using cameras and microphones he has surreptitiously installed, he begins to understand what happened to his parents. Then he learns that someone is stalking him. This first novel by the author of nonfiction best sellers like Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man sounds at once spooky and thought-provoking and should attract some attention.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2012
Emotionally assaulted by the horrific deaths of his parents when he was a teenager, first-person narrator Nick Walsh, now 34, lives life as a facsimile of maleness, a plastic cast of put-on, pumped-up, artificial dudeness that bears little resemblance to the terrified boy still hiding within. A cast of characters described in excruciatingly honest detail supports, dogs, champions, and reviles him throughout these pages. As Nick stumbles through his days in a deliberate state of debauchery, he also fills his time watching his neighbors via feeds from the cameras he has hidden in their houses in a desperate attempt to understand the circumstances behind his parents' deaths. When Monica enters his life, he discovers someone who seems to be both kindred spirit and mysterious provocateur of all his own deepest fears and desires. Filled with the darkest sides of the human capacity for cruelty, Vincent's fiction debut is no forgettable beach read. Instead, she presents a slicing examination of the bonds between families, neighbors, and strangers in a way that will have readers wondering about the secrets on their own streets.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)