PERFECTLY NICE NEIGHBORS

When the Bangladeshi Khatun family moves to a new London suburb, an incident with their white next-door neighbors escalates into tragedy and catastrophe.

Welcome to Blenheim: There are homes with perfect lawns, “neat streets and perfectly nice neighbors.” Despite financial difficulties in the wake of the pandemic, Salma and Bilal Khatun have moved there out of concern for their 18-year-old son, Zain, who's gotten into trouble at school. At a May Day barbecue they're invited to in their first week, there are undertones of discomfort in the words of their mostly white neighbors, but, exhaustingly, that’s nothing unexpected—but then Salma sees her next-door neighbor Tom Hutton deliberately knock over the Black Lives Matter banner they’ve displayed in their yard. She brings it inside and hangs it in the window—only to find the next morning that the pane has been painted over. When she confronts Tom and his pregnant wife, Willa, about the vandalism, things quickly get out of hand, and Zain films the confrontation. Of course, the recording ends up on Twitter, leading to Tom’s being fired and Salma’s dog being stolen. Even a burgeoning friendship between Zain and Jamie Hutton can’t mend the rift, and soon, a second confrontation between the two families gets physical. Trapped in a spiral of pain and resentment, and spurred on by social media and the political climate, soon one of them will be on trial for attempted murder, and all their lives will be forever altered. While thrillers can certainly offer social commentary, there is little “thrill” to be had in this novel. Instead, it’s a gritty, uncomfortable story about the ravages of racism.

One cannot remain passive in the face of this novel, and the ending lets no one off the hook.