“The Good Neighbor, ” the second book by “The Glass Wives” author Amy Sue Nathan, is largely about a lie and its repercussions. Recently divorced high-school counselor and single mother Izzy Lane one day invents a fake boyfriend named “Mac” to write about on her blog and save face in front of her ex-husband. Her best friend Jade, who owns a small but growing blogging platform, decides to pick up Izzy’s blog so she can tell steamy stories about her new, supposedly successful relationship and give dating advice to singles over forty. Izzy’s lies continue to snowball, and the only people who know the truth are her gay brother Ethan and her elderly neighbor Mrs. Feldman, both of whom demand she come clean. Izzy proceeds to drag her feet.
Like many stories about lies, “The Good Neighbor” swims in cringe. Izzy frequently, almost constantly, makes the wrong decision. She’s the sort of protagonist you want to yell at and indeed, I found myself screaming at her as if she was a group of horror movie coeds about to split up in a spooky mansion. There are obvious solutions to her web of lies, but she refuses to even consider them until it is far too late and that’s the point. The recently divorced Izzy is so enamored with the attention her blog gives her that it’s natural she wouldn’t see the easy outs. That very need for attention causes us to root for the inevitable karmic backlash Nathan has in store for her; the isolation that feeds it allows us to retain our sympathy.
Nathan does a great job of ratcheting up the tension in her conflict and keeping readers invested in it, but aspects of “The Good Neighbor” diminish its strength. Nathan chooses not to as deeply explore the moment that led to the lie as she does the moments that perpetuate it, nor does she go out of her way to sell us on her protagonist’s blog. The ending is also a tad easy on Izzy, quickly resolving the inevitable consequences rather than letting them linger. However, these choices never prevent “The Good Neighbor” from being an entertaining read. Much like a good soap opera or Greek tragedy, it finds a sweet spot of catharsis that reminds you that whatever your flaws, at least you aren’t Izzy Lane. (Brendan Buck)
“The Good Neighbor” By Amy Sue Nathan Saint Martin’s Griffin, 272 pages, $15.99
November 5, Reading, Q&A, and signing at The Book Stall, 811 Elm, Winnetka, (847)446-8880, 7pm.
Related Stories
Postpartum Private Eye: A Review of "Rebecca and Lucie In the Case of the Missing Neighbor" by Pascal Girard In the graphic novel ""Rebecca and Lucie," with a subtitle that indicates it might be the first in a series to come, Pascal Girard refreshes the well-worn amatuer sleuth genre by making his detective a bored mother on maternity leave who inserts herself into the search for a missing neighbor, and conducts her investigation with a baby in tow.
Light in A Dark Age: A Review of "Kells" by Amy Crider This new book by Chicago playwright Crider is the kind that drops you into the Middle Ages like a stone into a lake. But “Kells” is not just about the past. It's about the life-giving power of art, created despite all the world’s dangers.
Like a Joni Mitchell Song: A Review of Amy Key’s “Arrangements in Blue” A lyrical meditation that centers on the small moments of domesticity, rest and bliss experienced as an independent woman and artist that’s simultaneously complicated by the earnest and ceaseless desire to find a partner and become a mother.
The Mother of Good Luck: A Review of Dream Books and Gamblers Elizabeth Schroeder Schlabach takes us to Great Migration-era Chicago. When southern Blacks transplanted to Chicago, fleeing Jim Crow, they first landed and were crowded into the Bronzeville neighborhood. Soon after an informal market of illegal lotteries referred to as “policy” sprung up. Schlabach’s particular focus is Black womanhood in this policy industry.
“The Good Neighbor, ” the second book by “The Glass Wives” author Amy Sue Nathan, is largely about a lie and its repercussions. Recently divorced high-school counselor and single mother Izzy Lane one day invents a fake boyfriend named “Mac” to write about on her blog and save face in front of her ex-husband. Her best friend Jade, who owns a small but growing blogging platform, decides to pick up Izzy’s blog so she can tell steamy stories about her new, supposedly successful relationship and give dating advice to singles over forty. Izzy’s lies continue to snowball, and the only people who know the truth are her gay brother Ethan and her elderly neighbor Mrs. Feldman, both of whom demand she come clean. Izzy proceeds to drag her feet.
