Post by laurenscharhag on Nov 25, 2013 14:30:44 GMT -6
The Neighbors is the second novel by Ania Ahlborn. Apparently, her first book deals with the supernatural, but here, girl goes old school—we’re talkin’ Edgar Allan Poe territory, with madness, murder, a subterranean chamber and even incestuous Ushers.
Lest you think that this is some stodgy tale of crumbling ancestral manses and tell-tale hearts, rest assured, this book is thoroughly modern. Well, it takes place in the modern day anyway, with Wi-Fi and everything, though Ahlborn seems enamored with bygone American eras, from the 1950s through the 70s. There’s a liberal infusion of pop culture and pop cultural psychology. In fact, Ahlborn has no problem whatsoever tossing out references to obvious influences, like Psycho, and not-so-obvious influences, like Charlie’s Angels.
The plot is deceptively simple. After a blowout argument with his drunken, headcase mother, twentysomething Andrew Morrison has moved out of his house for the very first time, leaving Mommie Dearest to fend for herself. Despite the fact that Drew has sacrificed most of his life being the caregiver in that relationship, he wrestles with feelings of guilt for abandoning her. He moves “across town,” (that would be the fictional town of Creekside, KS), to bunk with an old buddy named Mickey Fitch. Mick lives in the shitty house on Magnolia Lane (though even in a town like Creekside, one assumes there are HOAs?), made shittier by comparison to the pristine white Leave it to Beaver house next door, complete with a white picket fence, and a woman with a wide smile and a Barbara Billingsley wardrobe.
That woman is Harlow Ward. Her husband is Red. It is immediately clear that things are not as they seem on Magnolia Lane, and boy howdy, you have no idea just how twisted things can get. But it is clear from the opening that pages that something’s amiss, as Drew notices a mysterious locked door in Mick’s hallway. One morning, Drew wakes up to find his bedroom door opened and his wallet rifled through. He also discovers, over the course of his and Rick’s cohabitation, that his new roomie has strange aversion to Mr. and Mrs. All-American next door.
At a glance, the Wards are the perfect neighbors—the type who always have a cheerful greeting and a plate of cookies. Not only is their house repeatedly compared to 50s sitcoms, their last name refers to Ward Cleaver. But their house number is 668—as in, next door to 666. Neighbor of the beast, geddit? Har har.
The Ward home, with its gleaming white paint and carefully tended rosebushes, is something of an anti-gothic setting, which I thought was a nice touch. For some of us, is there anything more terrifying than suburbs and small towns? The Stepford Wives springs immediately to mind, which I think was very much the point. For a lot of women, there’s nothing worse than the idea of being tethered by your apron strings to a candy-pink stove and carpool duties, doomed to let your college education rot between your ears while the most high-brow thing you get up to is proofread your kid’s book report on Lord of the Flies.
Shudder.
I am delighted that such incisive social commentary has been brought to us by a female horror author. One of the reasons I picked this book up, in fact, was because a woman wrote it. By giving us the child of an alcoholic, Ahlborn also touches on a lot of real-life fears—the fear of being alone in the world, effectively an orphan. The fear of having no prospects—high school is growing farther and farther behind you, and the only skill you have on your resume is “bag boy.” Of being so needy that you’ll cling to anyone who shows you the slightest bit of attention, even if that person is poison.
In Drew’s case, that poison is Harlow, who, with her platinum blond curls and dynamite curves, looks like she just stepped off a World War II pin-up. She is repeatedly compared to Marilyn Monroe, and her wardrobe to that of Audrey Hepburn and Jackie O. I applaud Ahlborn for giving us a female villain. I think equality in fiction means female characters being free to be just as diabolical as men, and make no mistake, Harlow is vile. However, the femme fatale trope is nothing new. Then there’s a rape-revenge element in her motives that I’m not so sure about, as well as a fire-and-brimstone preacher of a father. Hasn’t that territory been covered rather exhaustively? Can’t a bitch just be crazy, like full-blown, liver-and-fava-bean-eatin’ psycho without having sexual abuse in her past? I am also troubled by the fact that Harlow is somewhere in her forties or fifties, and so every time one of the male characters remark on her appeal, it almost always contains the qualifier, “for her age.” Can’t a woman just be sexy? Do we say Halle Berry or Nicole Kidman or Sharon Stone looks great, “for her age”? Or do we just say they’re sexy?
If we do, then we need to stop it. Sexy is sexy, at any age.
It should be noted, this book does not even pass the Bechdel test. The only female characters we actually see are Harlow and (very briefly) Drew’s mom, whose name I couldn’t even recall but had to look up. (It’s Julie). Throughout the book, the men blame the women for their bad choices. I don’t even know what to make of this quagmire of psychological issues. The Psycho references are apropos, given that Harlow has parental issues the way Norman Bates has parental issues. But so does Drew. So does Mick. And Red—well, I’m not sure what his excuse is. The point is, they ALL make choices. I don’t like how they saddle Harlow with responsibility for their actions.
Harlow’s maiden name is Beaumont, as in Hugh Beaumont, the actor who played Ward Cleaver. It may also be a reference to Charles Beaumont, a writer who is best known for his Twilight Zone episodes, which are from the same era and paint a very different picture of 1950s life, one that is certainly more in line with The Neighbors. My one complaint about all the allusions is that I wish Ahlborn had just quietly given us these references and let us work them out for ourselves, but she feels the need to not only explain many of them, but to belabor them.
Meanwhile, Harlow is most assuredly a reference to Jean Harlow, that blond 1930s bombshell who hailed from—where was it? Oh, yes. Kansas City. Too bad Ahlborn, like most of the people on the planet, is unaware that there are two, very different Kansas Cities—one in Missouri and one in Kansas. Jean Harlow was from the Missouri one.
As someone from KCMO, of course I spot all of the inaccuracies about the region. I bring this up because Ahlborn makes such a point of the story being set in Kansas. I don’t get it. The story could have taken place anywhere in the US. Why Kansas? What about Kansas, in particular, felt right for this story? I understand that Ahlborn is not from the US by birth, but if it’s meant to be such a point, shouldn’t you, I dunno, research the place you’re writing about? Or maybe even visit? I promise, it wouldn’t be an expensive trip.
And it’s not just the obvious stuff, like the fact that Ahlborn seems to think tornadoes happen here constantly, or that wheat grows in every back yard. Creekside doesn’t even sound, to a native Midwesterner, like the name of a Kansas town, which have mostly Native American or French names. There is not, nor has there ever been, a Kansas City College. But what really bothered me was Ahlborn’s failure to capture anything about the culture here (and yes, we do have one). The speech patterns, the rhythms of Kansas life—Ahlborn doesn’t seem familiar with any of it. She doesn’t even seem to know what constitutes a “small town” around here. Creekside has five grocery stores, a Wal-Mart and a bevy of fast food joints. We’d call that a city. She references teenagers and young people having cocaine problems, where meth is the far more likely vice. When Mick and his mother move across town, he and Drew aren’t reunited until adulthood. I assure you, if they lived in an actual small town, they would see each other whether they wanted to or not. Also, Drew is deeply isolated and ashamed of his alcoholic mother—an alcoholic parent is not an unusual problem for poor kids in tiny backwaters, where the poverty rate is high and the number of entertainment venues low. Drew would probably have a lot more sympathetic friends and friends’ parents who would be willing to assist him.
Then, there’s the obligatory Wizard of Oz references. Ferfucksake people, that movie came out OVER SEVENTY YEARS AGO. Move the fuck on. Get some new material. That is all I will say on that subject.
This book is, for the most part, well-written, by which I mean, Ahlborn constructs some very nice sentences, and the pastiche of American eras works for me—drive-in burger joints rubbing shoulders with Pearl Jam and Rat Pack crooners. I think it says something about our current times that nostalgia is such a thing, and an author who can tap into the zeitgeist in such a way is fully worth reading. Drew is believably sweet and eager, like a kicked puppy who still wants to lick your hand, so he’s easy to root for. Some plot threads don’t quite come together in the end, most notably (SPOILER ALERT) the consequences of Isaac Ward’s murder. As for the horror aspects—the chills chill sufficiently, and the gross-outs inspire plenty of ewwwws, so you’d be getting your money’s worth on that score.
In a genre that is woefully dearth of the female perspective, I am eager to see what else Ahlborn has to offer.
Lest you think that this is some stodgy tale of crumbling ancestral manses and tell-tale hearts, rest assured, this book is thoroughly modern. Well, it takes place in the modern day anyway, with Wi-Fi and everything, though Ahlborn seems enamored with bygone American eras, from the 1950s through the 70s. There’s a liberal infusion of pop culture and pop cultural psychology. In fact, Ahlborn has no problem whatsoever tossing out references to obvious influences, like Psycho, and not-so-obvious influences, like Charlie’s Angels.
The plot is deceptively simple. After a blowout argument with his drunken, headcase mother, twentysomething Andrew Morrison has moved out of his house for the very first time, leaving Mommie Dearest to fend for herself. Despite the fact that Drew has sacrificed most of his life being the caregiver in that relationship, he wrestles with feelings of guilt for abandoning her. He moves “across town,” (that would be the fictional town of Creekside, KS), to bunk with an old buddy named Mickey Fitch. Mick lives in the shitty house on Magnolia Lane (though even in a town like Creekside, one assumes there are HOAs?), made shittier by comparison to the pristine white Leave it to Beaver house next door, complete with a white picket fence, and a woman with a wide smile and a Barbara Billingsley wardrobe.
That woman is Harlow Ward. Her husband is Red. It is immediately clear that things are not as they seem on Magnolia Lane, and boy howdy, you have no idea just how twisted things can get. But it is clear from the opening that pages that something’s amiss, as Drew notices a mysterious locked door in Mick’s hallway. One morning, Drew wakes up to find his bedroom door opened and his wallet rifled through. He also discovers, over the course of his and Rick’s cohabitation, that his new roomie has strange aversion to Mr. and Mrs. All-American next door.
At a glance, the Wards are the perfect neighbors—the type who always have a cheerful greeting and a plate of cookies. Not only is their house repeatedly compared to 50s sitcoms, their last name refers to Ward Cleaver. But their house number is 668—as in, next door to 666. Neighbor of the beast, geddit? Har har.
The Ward home, with its gleaming white paint and carefully tended rosebushes, is something of an anti-gothic setting, which I thought was a nice touch. For some of us, is there anything more terrifying than suburbs and small towns? The Stepford Wives springs immediately to mind, which I think was very much the point. For a lot of women, there’s nothing worse than the idea of being tethered by your apron strings to a candy-pink stove and carpool duties, doomed to let your college education rot between your ears while the most high-brow thing you get up to is proofread your kid’s book report on Lord of the Flies.
Shudder.
I am delighted that such incisive social commentary has been brought to us by a female horror author. One of the reasons I picked this book up, in fact, was because a woman wrote it. By giving us the child of an alcoholic, Ahlborn also touches on a lot of real-life fears—the fear of being alone in the world, effectively an orphan. The fear of having no prospects—high school is growing farther and farther behind you, and the only skill you have on your resume is “bag boy.” Of being so needy that you’ll cling to anyone who shows you the slightest bit of attention, even if that person is poison.
In Drew’s case, that poison is Harlow, who, with her platinum blond curls and dynamite curves, looks like she just stepped off a World War II pin-up. She is repeatedly compared to Marilyn Monroe, and her wardrobe to that of Audrey Hepburn and Jackie O. I applaud Ahlborn for giving us a female villain. I think equality in fiction means female characters being free to be just as diabolical as men, and make no mistake, Harlow is vile. However, the femme fatale trope is nothing new. Then there’s a rape-revenge element in her motives that I’m not so sure about, as well as a fire-and-brimstone preacher of a father. Hasn’t that territory been covered rather exhaustively? Can’t a bitch just be crazy, like full-blown, liver-and-fava-bean-eatin’ psycho without having sexual abuse in her past? I am also troubled by the fact that Harlow is somewhere in her forties or fifties, and so every time one of the male characters remark on her appeal, it almost always contains the qualifier, “for her age.” Can’t a woman just be sexy? Do we say Halle Berry or Nicole Kidman or Sharon Stone looks great, “for her age”? Or do we just say they’re sexy?
If we do, then we need to stop it. Sexy is sexy, at any age.
It should be noted, this book does not even pass the Bechdel test. The only female characters we actually see are Harlow and (very briefly) Drew’s mom, whose name I couldn’t even recall but had to look up. (It’s Julie). Throughout the book, the men blame the women for their bad choices. I don’t even know what to make of this quagmire of psychological issues. The Psycho references are apropos, given that Harlow has parental issues the way Norman Bates has parental issues. But so does Drew. So does Mick. And Red—well, I’m not sure what his excuse is. The point is, they ALL make choices. I don’t like how they saddle Harlow with responsibility for their actions.
Harlow’s maiden name is Beaumont, as in Hugh Beaumont, the actor who played Ward Cleaver. It may also be a reference to Charles Beaumont, a writer who is best known for his Twilight Zone episodes, which are from the same era and paint a very different picture of 1950s life, one that is certainly more in line with The Neighbors. My one complaint about all the allusions is that I wish Ahlborn had just quietly given us these references and let us work them out for ourselves, but she feels the need to not only explain many of them, but to belabor them.
Meanwhile, Harlow is most assuredly a reference to Jean Harlow, that blond 1930s bombshell who hailed from—where was it? Oh, yes. Kansas City. Too bad Ahlborn, like most of the people on the planet, is unaware that there are two, very different Kansas Cities—one in Missouri and one in Kansas. Jean Harlow was from the Missouri one.
As someone from KCMO, of course I spot all of the inaccuracies about the region. I bring this up because Ahlborn makes such a point of the story being set in Kansas. I don’t get it. The story could have taken place anywhere in the US. Why Kansas? What about Kansas, in particular, felt right for this story? I understand that Ahlborn is not from the US by birth, but if it’s meant to be such a point, shouldn’t you, I dunno, research the place you’re writing about? Or maybe even visit? I promise, it wouldn’t be an expensive trip.
And it’s not just the obvious stuff, like the fact that Ahlborn seems to think tornadoes happen here constantly, or that wheat grows in every back yard. Creekside doesn’t even sound, to a native Midwesterner, like the name of a Kansas town, which have mostly Native American or French names. There is not, nor has there ever been, a Kansas City College. But what really bothered me was Ahlborn’s failure to capture anything about the culture here (and yes, we do have one). The speech patterns, the rhythms of Kansas life—Ahlborn doesn’t seem familiar with any of it. She doesn’t even seem to know what constitutes a “small town” around here. Creekside has five grocery stores, a Wal-Mart and a bevy of fast food joints. We’d call that a city. She references teenagers and young people having cocaine problems, where meth is the far more likely vice. When Mick and his mother move across town, he and Drew aren’t reunited until adulthood. I assure you, if they lived in an actual small town, they would see each other whether they wanted to or not. Also, Drew is deeply isolated and ashamed of his alcoholic mother—an alcoholic parent is not an unusual problem for poor kids in tiny backwaters, where the poverty rate is high and the number of entertainment venues low. Drew would probably have a lot more sympathetic friends and friends’ parents who would be willing to assist him.
Then, there’s the obligatory Wizard of Oz references. Ferfucksake people, that movie came out OVER SEVENTY YEARS AGO. Move the fuck on. Get some new material. That is all I will say on that subject.
This book is, for the most part, well-written, by which I mean, Ahlborn constructs some very nice sentences, and the pastiche of American eras works for me—drive-in burger joints rubbing shoulders with Pearl Jam and Rat Pack crooners. I think it says something about our current times that nostalgia is such a thing, and an author who can tap into the zeitgeist in such a way is fully worth reading. Drew is believably sweet and eager, like a kicked puppy who still wants to lick your hand, so he’s easy to root for. Some plot threads don’t quite come together in the end, most notably (SPOILER ALERT) the consequences of Isaac Ward’s murder. As for the horror aspects—the chills chill sufficiently, and the gross-outs inspire plenty of ewwwws, so you’d be getting your money’s worth on that score.
In a genre that is woefully dearth of the female perspective, I am eager to see what else Ahlborn has to offer.