A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

As a native of Raleigh, North Carolina, I am a sucker for things set here.  Most of us are.  We hoot and shout during Wagon Wheel, we at least attempt to tackle Outlander because in like season 37 they come to North Carolina or some bizarre representation thereof, we are flattered (if confused) by Where the Crawdads Sing and its use of our state's geography (who knew quick shopping trips from the beach to Asheville were so common?!), we will fight you over Charles Frazier.

So it's no surprise that when I found out (directly from the author herself) that Therese Anne Fowler was coming out with a book set in a fictionalized version of a local neighborhood, I was very interested.  Therese is always excessively kind in coming to our book club meetings and so we've snagged her again for a Zoom meeting later this year where we'll discuss A Good Neighborhood, the third of her books that we've read.  And we don't just keep reading them because we can have a brush with celebrity afterwards.  We read them because they're freaking good.

Her writing is believable, even when addressing strange topics.  And the characters are complete people with realistic motives and feelings.  It's hard for me to not relate to a book where a character says, "I might could."

A Good Neighborhood does not disappoint.  It hurts and bewilders, and at times frustrates.  But it's a good book with a lot to say and a unique way of saying it.  Like a Greek chorus, a third-person semi-omniscient narrator representing the residents of the neighborhood guides us through this story.  We enter the minds of all the relevant characters and find the sources of misunderstandings and resentments.

This story could easily take place in many different places in this country, but I recognized so many of the things that form our character here.  There is the tension of a neighborhood changing from a modest, quiet place to one now sprouting mini-mansions filled with the nouveau riche while still housing the long-established residents.  There is also the tension between races in a world quickly changing but not always keeping up with itself.

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There is one typo I noticed in the ebook.

Flight Behavior

I might not have thought much about the weather, but I had just finished reading Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.

The weather in my part of North Carolina has been downright frightening recently. Much like in Flight Behavior, we experienced unseasonable warmth leading up to Christmas and had a few days of heavy rain that left the creek behind the house much higher than I like to see. It didn't last as long as in the book and the repercussions weren't as dire, but it's unsettling to see life imitate art (even if that art is already imitating life) right in front of you.

In Kinsolver's novel, the freakish weather is not freakish at all. Dellarobia Turnbow, the woman whose life is turned upside down by these weather patterns, learns that the changes are quite natural and expected now that the earth's climate has been so wrecked by global warming. But the biggest change the weather brings to Dellarobia's life is not the threat to her land and livelihood, it's an awakening to the possibilities hidden in her own life. Dellarobia has long ago resigned herself to a largely unfulfilling life as a wife and mother. This is not the life she wanted for herself, even though she is the object of jealousy for some women in town. Cub, her husband, is a kind and dependable man, but she resents him for tying her down early in life. Her ship has sailed and any chance of furthering her education, station in life, and personal satisfaction seems beyond her grasp.

She has a multitude of butterflies to thank for opening her eyes. Global warming drives countless Monarch butterflies from their usual roosting spot in Mexico to the mountains of Appalachia, specifically the mountain above Dellarobia's house. What she first takes as a personal warning from God turns out to be a sign of something deeply wrong throughout the world. And her in-laws are even less thrilled to hear about global warming than they are about the orange butterflies perching in their trees and holding up their logging contract. What was once an invisible rift between Dellarobia and the people around her begins to grow very noticeable. Her only allies in learning about what brought this "miracle" to her land are her precocious young son, Preston, and Ovid Byron, a visiting  lepidopterist who gently guides her to an understanding of the bigger picture these creatures represent.

Much as Dellarobia anxiously watches the Monarchs for signs that they will survive and find their way to a better life, the reader watches Dellarobia and hopes that she will find her way out of her own personal crisis into a beautiful future. Great for lovers of Kingsolver's other works and anyone interested in the way the world around us shapes our lives.