Thy Neighbor

A Novel

By: Norah Vincent

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

From the New York Times bestselling author, a first novel as spellbinding as her acclaimed nonfiction

At thirty-four, Nick Walsh is a broken, deeply cynical man. Since the violent deaths of his parents thirteen years earlier, he has been living alone in his childhood home in the suburban Midwest, drinking, drugging, and debauching himself into oblivion. A measure of solace is provided by his newly found relationship with Monica, a mysterious woman who seems to harbor as many secrets as he does.

Obsessed with understanding the circumstances surrounding his parents’ deaths and deranged by his relentless sorrow, Nick begins a campaign of spying on his neighbors via hidden cameras and microphones he has covertly installed in their houses. As he observes with amusement and disbelief all the strange, sad, and terrifying things that his neighbors do to themselves and to one another, and as he, in turn, learns that he is being stalked, he begins to slowly unravel the shocking truth about how and why his parents died.

At once unsettling and moving, humorous and horrifying, Thy Neighbor explores the nature of grief, the potential isolation of suburban life, and who we really are when we think no one is watching. What readers and critics have admired in Norah Vincent’s nonfiction is completely unleashed in this vivid and provocative novel.

Critic reviews

Praise for Thy Neighbor

"Norah Vincent will make you laugh while she is breaking your heart, and make you feel pity as you recoil in disgust. At once a misanthropic rant, a voyeuristic free for all, and a philosophic thriller, Thy Neighbor is a book that you will tear through in a few days and chew on for a long time thereafter. It's a heady and wonderful read." —Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story

“One of our smartest and most original journalists has changed hats, and the new one fits her perfectly. A raging, jolting, arrestingly hard-edged novel of paranoia and revenge in the suburbs, Thy Neighbor crackles with ferocious energy and virtuosic phrasemaking. If you go for noir, prepare to be plunged into the desperate darkness of a world full of lost souls and lost hope—but keep one eye peeled for the glimmer of light at the far end of the tunnel.” —Terry Teachout

Balerini is great. The book is not.

Edoardo Balerini has narrated only a few books, and I have come to love his voice and his skills. If you'd like a better book to listen to with him narrating, try Beautiful Ruin. This book initially astounds us with brilliant writing, and what at first sounds like an unusual woman's feeling for a male protagonist. The gimmick is clever enough: he bugs the houses of a number of his neighbors, and videotapes their domestic lives. So, he gets to have a unique perspective on their private comings-and-goings. Some of this is amusing, although much of it is torment, better kept private. By the middle of the book it becomes clear that the book has no plot, and is entirely about relationships. I know it is not PC to call this chick lit, but there it is, nonetheless. I was bored by the middle of the book. Everyone has his tragedies, including the protagonist, whose father killed his mother and then turned the gun on himself. This history leads us to a tormented life, and, through the spying, to many other tormented lives. I did not expect this, particularly because Mr. Balerini is so witty and can be so much fun when given the proper material. The protagonist and his erstwhile girlfriend are people about whom we care nothing, as they are both thoroughly schizoid (isolated and incapable of functioning in relationships). After a while I found myself begging for some plot. Norah Vincent can write, but disguising her "hero" as a man does not disguise the nature of what she writes.

Disturbing

Would you try another book from Norah Vincent and/or Edoardo Ballerini?

Ballerini is one of my favorite narrators so I thought I would try this book. Publishers summary sounded interesting. The story is well written but is very disturbing, depressing and at times sickening. Not what I was looking for.

Did Edoardo Ballerini do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

One of my favorites narrators!

What character would you cut from Thy Neighbor?

I don't think there is a like able character anywhere in the story.

Gave Up

I'm three hours into this book, and aside from an egging and a scene involving a coffee enema that I didn't really need to hear about, not much has happened. Nearly the entire "story" so far has been the main character talking about his dead parents and his 42 year old neighbor an excruciatingly long amount of time. Maybe this thing eventually goes somewhere, but I will never know. The narrator is great, I would definitely listen to him again.

An okay storyline with great narration.

This book is okay. The story confuses you when you're first listening to it (or the second or third time through) . The narrator makes this book great just with his storytelling.

Save your credits.

I tried. I really did. I made it all the way through the first download before I threw in the towel. This story could have been written so much better. Hours of listening to a whiney, profane, self-centered young man excuse his own abberant behavior while blaming his parents for making him that way is just too much. Granted, he endured more than most in his young life but many people have faced as much and more and have been decent, caring, productive human beings in spite of, or because of, what they went through growing up. This is a re-write of an old story line which falls way short of adequate. Considering what he had to work with, the narrator did a good job. There, I found something positive to say.