A Good Neighborhood: A Novel

"Therese Anne Fowler’s latest novel takes place in Oak Knoll, an imaginary, mildly integrated community in North Carolina. Fowler’s protagonist is Valerie Alston-Holt, a widowed Black university professor, a botanist with a brilliant biracial son, Xavier. Their lives are turned upside down when the Whitmans, a new white family, build a McMansion next door to the Alston-Holts’ modest home, upsetting the ecological balance of Valerie’s carefully maintained land, and killing an ancient, much-beloved tree. The families clash and the result is Shakespearian. An unseen narrator, a neighbor, serves as the Greek Chorus to this story of race, class, region and, yes, tragic love. I hope HBO or Netflix or somebody is paying attention."