A Crime in the Neighborhood

 

A Crime in the Neighborhood
A Crime in the Neighborhood
by Authors: Suzanne Berne
Released: 01 July, 1998
ISBN: 0805055800
Paperback

Sales Rank: 27854
List price: $13.00
Our price: $9.75 (You save: $3.25)
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A Crime in the Neighborhood > Customer Review #1:
Scout Finch attends Sex Ed. 101

In A Crime in the Neighborhood, Suzanne Berne creates a realistic world as seen through the eyes of a ten year old child, Marsha. With a voice similar to Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, Suzanne successfully draws and maintains the readers attention throughout the novel. With expertise the author intertwines sexuality and period social norms to create complete characters that, more often than not, may resemble someone in our own neighborhood.
Marsha, a daddys girl, has always awoken to her dad drinking his coffee and reading the newspaper. This picture-perfect world soon crumbles when her father runs off with her mothers sister Ada. Marsha blames all that ensues on the departure of her father. Soon after her mom becomes a neat-freak, her older twin siblings steal cigarettes, a bully in her neighborhood is raped and killed, and a creepy neighbor moves in next door. In the final pages, after Sherlock Holmes-esque detective work, Marsha claims to know the murderer and reveals all. Sadly no relationships mend as expected, but hey, real life takes many paths.
Berne writes her book to educate the reader. With themes of sex and 70s gender roles, she covers a wide array of interests that makes her book marketable and enjoyed to the masses. The characters Berne depicts are comfortable with themselves sexually which makes for some humorous passages for the reader. The ever-curious Marsha spies on her aunts undressing at one point: "Aunt Claire smiled as she pulled off her blouse. She wasnt wearing a brassiere at all. Instead of the two cones Id been expecting, a pair of small, flattened-looking eyes confronted me, oatmeal-colored save for the brown, protruding, button iris(26)". This is where Marsha differs from Scout Finch. Scout was curious with what went on in the world around her, whereas Marsha focused on what happened behind closed doors. The most sexually embracing character, hands down, is Luann. She entertains herself with hermaphrodite, or "confused", Barbies who have sex. Some readers may find this type of material offensive, but personally I laughed. Passages like these balance the ominous parts of this novel that deal with the killing of an undeserving child. I cannot understand the presence of Luann, or the underlying tones of sex in A Crime in the Neighborhood, other than that these ideas might reflect the changing times of American culture, and highlight the sexual affair within the novel.
Gender roles of the 70s are blatantly explicit in this novel, educating the reader of societal changes over the past three decades. At a time when single-parent families were uncommon, the neighbors felt uncomfortable around Marshas family and even with their single neighbor Mr. Green. The men-folk of the street had no shame in knocking on Mr. Greens door and informing him that this was a "family neighborhood" (251). It surprised me that singleness was looked down upon, even when in all other aspects Mr. Green was a near perfect neighbor. Also typical of 70s life was the sole provider. The men brought home the dough so to speak, while the women raised the kids. Some people argue that our society has changed for the worse, but I beg to differ. Growing up in a family where both parents work, or at times just my mom, I can appreciate these social revolutions.
I could not get enough of Suzanne Bernes writing techniques. She utilized metaphors like crazy, played with the readers emotions, and kept a strong voice throughout, all qualities characteristic of great writers. Peoples yards became "lit-up pools of lawn" (69), and Mr. Greens car was a "boatlike Dodge anchored in the driveway" (67). Phrases like these flooded my mind with images, drawing me deeper into the realistic landscape of Bernes D.C. street. Unfortunately these metaphorical expressions halted midway through the novel, but were replaced by color repetition instead. Everything in the second half of the novel related to the color orange. There were orange balloons, orange sodas, orange muumuus, orange coals, orange Kool-Aid...orange, orange, orange. Maybe my brain is just twisted, but I think the color orange has some hidden meaning; whatever it is, Berne keeps it hidden from the reader.
Suzanne Berne left questions unanswered that seemed important to the plot, leaving me, and Im sure countless others, with an unnerving sense of incompletion. I was left wondering if the twins ever talked to Marsha, what happened to the other sisters, did Lois remarry, etc. In my opinion this was the novels major flaw.
What Berne lacked in completion, she made up for in voice. To have the narration be in the voice of a child was proven successful in To Kill a Mockingbird; it worked here magnificently. Children have a way of seeing the world in a completely different way. Evident on page 107 is Marshas naivety. "[Boyd Ellison] has gotten lost...Who had lost the child...Could you lose a child the same way you could lose the car keys?" Understandably, at age 10, Marsha doesnt quite grasp the concept of death, and Berne captures her innocence, which is amusing, ignoring the circumstances of course. Unlike the format of To Kill a Mockingbird, Berne chooses to intersperse the adult voice of Marsha more frequently, which causes confusion at first until the reader is able to distinguish the two voices. Once discernible, the additional perspective adds another informative and intriguing layer to the story.
In her story of the changing times for one neighborhood, contemporary author Suzanne Berne creates believable characters that one might expect a nosy phone call from. A Crime in the Neighborhood blends time-proven writing styles with modern situations to take the reader on a journey through a decade unknown to many youth while maintaining a humorous, informative, and easy to read format. I doubt this book will become a classic, but it definitely mocks one. Here again the voice of a child captures an audience of adults.

A Crime in the Neighborhood > Customer Review #2:
Thoroughly enjoyable

A Crime in the Neighborhood is a thoroughly enjoyable coming of age story with a twist. While this is not a "whodunnit" (and those of you looking for one will be disappointed), a murder does figure prominently in the storyline. Our story takes place in 1972 with 10 year old Marsha narrating. Her father has run off with her Aunt, her mother is at her wits end, her twin siblings are getting into trouble, and a neighborhood boy has been murdered. I could especially relate to the time and feel of this story as I too was a ten year old girl in 1972. I remember just as in the novel when everyone knew their neighbors and no one locked their doors. But times are changing and the murder signals an end of innocence in Marshas life and the world around her. This is a well written story with an extremely realistic feel; I could picture this neighborhood so clearly in my head it was as if I had actually been there. Seek this novel out, its well worth your time to read.

A Crime in the Neighborhood > Customer Review #3:
Keep Looking!

While I did finish this book, It never had a climax...it just went and went and went without a rise and fall :(. This book could have been soo much better if it just had something dramatic happen towards the end of the book. Anything would have been better, then nothing ever happening! And I would have liked to know more about Mr. Green at the end of the book, like how did he get that mermaid tatoo after all?!

 
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