The Girl Next Door

The Girl Next Door turned out to be a story I actually new (from the film An American Crime). In mid 60s a woman her children (some of them teens) torture and kill a 16 year old girl with some of the neighbourhood kids participating.

The novel sets the story in the end of 50s and change the facts a bit but the gist of the story remains. I liked Mr.Ketchum's Offspring and this novel was just as good. I was duly horrified and wanted to actually get in the novel and prevent what was going to happen. The story teller is a 12,5 year old boy who is the next door neighbour. And he -at the beginning- condones what was happening (which is torturing the poor girl). Here the writer tries to shine a light on the phsyche of the participants. There is Ruth, an adult they like and trust not just allowing but instructing them to punish the girl they all desire and envy. But he soon realises that what is happening is not only wrong but also dangerous. First he worries about being considered an accomplice -which he was since although he didn't do anything, he sure liked to watch- and doesn't tell about it. On the other hand another kid in the neighbourhood does tell and the parents don't take him seriously (which is the most chilling part for me, people not reacting to child abuse - one of the neighbours beat his wife and kids and everyone knows but they don't do anything). But I think if David told, his parents would take him seriously and looked into the matter.

Then he tries to help her escape (and came up with a good plan but it doesn't work since she wants to take her sister too - the sister who is hurt at a previous accident cannot walk without steel braces (had polio in real story) is the tool Ruth uses on our poor heroine to get her do what she wants. And not only that she sexually abuses the sister a well.

So in the end David joins the captives and is locked up with them. Which is how they are found out since his parents started to look for him. Well what David did was inexcusable but I believe in redemption and he tried to do the right thing in the end.

I really recommend this novel but one has to have a strong stomach (it is not that gory - hah especially in comparison to Offspring- but evil is more scary than gore).