Good Neighbors

The novel opens with excerpts from a 2043 academic text framing the events on Maple Street as a national obsession. The author asks how a suburban community could conspire toward the murder of an entire family, then suggests the accusations against that family may have been true. This framing device recurs throughout, along with future journalism and an immersive Broadway show, signaling that the story's meaning remains contested decades later.

In the summer of 2027, Gertie Wilde, a former beauty pageant winner now working in real estate, lives at 116 Maple Street on Long Island with her husband Arlo and their children, 12-year-old Julia and eight-year-old Larry. Gertie is 24 weeks pregnant. The family bought a fixer-upper they never renovated and remain outsiders. Arlo, a former rock star whose band Fred Savage's Revenge once charted on Billboard, now sells office printers; tattoos cover needle scars from past heroin use. Larry has sensory sensitivities and carries a doll called Robot Boy. The Wildes' lifestyle clashes with the affluent norms of Maple Street.

On July 4th, the Wildes discover every family on the block has been invited to a party in Sterling Park except them. Gertie's friend Rhea Schroeder, a college professor and the block's social organizer, confirms the exclusion was "no accident" (8). The Wildes attend anyway. Mid-party, a sinkhole opens, swallowing picnic equipment and Ralph, the German shepherd belonging to Arlo's only friends on the block, Fred and Bethany Atlas. Bitumen, a tar-like substance, seeps to the surface, cell reception degrades, and several families leave.

Rhea's backstory reveals deep isolation. Raised by her father alone after her mother's death, she earned a PhD in literature and secured a tenure-track position. After her father died of cirrhosis from a secret alcohol addiction, Rhea was devastated by grief she calls "the murk." An incident at a café called the Hungarian Pastry Shop severely injured someone; Rhea was demoted, her career destroyed. She married Fritz Schroeder, a German chemist, out of mutual loneliness and spent two decades raising four children alone on Maple Street, burying her pain beneath the persona of a perfect suburban wife.

Rhea befriended Gertie as a fellow outsider. During confessional conversations, Gertie shared her history of sexual abuse on the pageant circuit, and Rhea reciprocated with dark revelations, including wishing her family dead. Gertie recoiled. Rhea retaliated by spreading stories about Arlo's past and excluding the Wildes from the party.

Rhea's relationship with her 13-year-old daughter Shelly is increasingly disturbing; one night Rhea enters Shelly's room with a hairbrush, and the narration implies something habitual and ominous. On July 10th, Shelly, the leader of the neighborhood children called the Rat Pack, bullies Julia and Larry, mocking Larry's social differences. When Shelly threatens Larry, Julia headbutts her. Shelly retaliates, screaming that Arlo sexually assaulted her. Julia points out a bloodstain on Shelly's jumpsuit, and Shelly flees.

Julia escapes to the sinkhole with two other Maple Street children, Charlie Walsh and Dave Harrison. Shelly returns with her hair hacked off, daring Julia onto the wooden slab covering the hole. After the slab cracks and the others scatter, Shelly's demeanor transforms. She lifts her shirt to reveal oval-shaped bruises from a hairbrush covering her back. The abuse started around her 13th birthday; she stores photographic evidence in a lockbox she calls her "Pain Box." She has considered suicide. Julia proposes they go to the police, and Shelly agrees.

They begin running, but Rhea and other adults give chase. Panicked, Shelly runs across the weakened slab. It collapses, and she falls into the sinkhole.

The search consumes weeks. Through leading questions and peer pressure, the neighbors extract a distorted narrative from their children: Several Rat Pack members corroborate Shelly's accusation against Arlo. Linda Ottomanelli, a Maple Street parent, buys her twins a PlayStation in exchange for testimony. Some children, including Dave, protest or struggle with guilt, but their parents refuse to retract. On July 21st, workers recover not Shelly but Ralph, preserved by cold water. Rhea slaps Gertie publicly. Gertie murmurs an apology, which the neighbors reinterpret as an admission of guilt.

The Wildes hold a private memorial, dropping a cigar box of keepsakes into the sinkhole. Julia tells her parents the truth: Shelly was being abused by Rhea. Police bring Arlo in on Rhea's accusation. Peter Benchley, an Iraq War veteran with a double amputation who watches the block from his attic, provides alibi testimony. Surveillance footage corroborates Arlo's account, but Detective Bianchi, an investigating officer, has gone door-to-door, and the list of witnesses against Arlo is extensive.

The neighbors organize a nighttime attack. FJ Schroeder, Rhea's son, throws bricks through the Wildes' bedroom window; one strikes Gertie, triggering a psychological breakdown rooted in her childhood trauma. Gertie is hospitalized at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, where she recognizes that Rhea had been reaching out for help and Gertie was too damaged to respond. Peter gives Arlo a loaded revolver before leaving the block, warning that Maple Street carries the same dangerous energy he felt in Iraq.

Arlo is detained by Child Protective Services after more families file fabricated accusations. While he is held, Gertie breaks into the Schroeder house and, with help from Rhea's nine-year-old daughter Ella, opens the Pain Box. Inside is a phone containing dozens of photos of bruises on Shelly's body. Gertie also finds clippings about Jessica Sherman, a girl who had a brain aneurysm after the Hungarian Pastry Shop incident and bears an uncanny resemblance to Shelly.

Rhea discovers evidence of the break-in. That night, she strikes Larry on the head with the Pain Box while he sleeps. Larry suffers a concussion. Arlo returns from detention, retrieves his family from the hospital, and the Wildes pack to leave. Before departing, Arlo snaps: Carrying Peter's gun, he walks the crescent confronting each household and points the weapon at the Schroeder house. Neighbors beat him savagely. Rhea picks up the fallen gun. The family retreats to a motor inn.

Late that night, Julia sneaks out and returns to the sinkhole before it is filled in the morning. Charlie, Dave, and the rest of the Rat Pack join her, including Ella. The eight children descend, wade through freezing water, and squeeze through a crevasse too narrow for adult divers. In a vast underground chamber filled with animals trapped in tar, Ella finds Shelly's body, perfectly preserved, the Wildes' funeral box open at her side.

The children clean Shelly's body and shout at the murk holding her: "You can't have her!" (263). The neighborhood converges as they carry her up. Once the body is laid out, Shelly's bruises are visible to all. Ella accuses Rhea publicly. Gertie embraces Rhea, who briefly grieves: "My baby. I'd die to have her back" (270).

The connection is fleeting. Fritz returns, having hired a lawyer. Believing he is abandoning her, Rhea shoots him with Peter's gun, which she hid in the Benchley mailbox. She shoots FJ in the neck as he flees. She fires at Ella on the Wildes' stoop, hitting her through Julia's protective hand. Gertie places her pregnant body between Julia and Rhea. In a final moment of clarity, Rhea sees the full scope of what she has done and turns the gun on herself.

Fritz, FJ, Ella, and Shelly are memorialized. Gretchen, the eldest Schroeder daughter, is the sole survivor. The Wildes move to California, where Julia becomes a social worker for foster children and Larry founds a video game company. Arlo teaches at UCLA but dies of hepatitis in 2037 from complications of past drug use. The Rat Pack members stay connected, meeting annually. Many Maple Street parents never recant. A 2037 New Yorker article focuses on the children's bravery, closing with a Grace Paley quotation about children intending "enormous changes at the last minute" (288).