#suzanne berne

[unresists]

A CRIME IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD BY SUZANNE BERNE

[unresists]

A CRIME IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD BY SUZANNE BERNE

[vouchsafes]

People who have gone so far always go a bit further. One careless step—then it hardly matters what carelessness follows. Or at least, that’s how it can seem to the person who has been careless.

- A Crime In The Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne

[thumbedpages]

Suzanne Berne - A Crime In The Neighborhood

[writerswritecompany]

Literary Birthday – 17 January – Suzanne Berne

Happy Birthday, Suzanne Berne, born 17 January 1961

Five Quotes

In my experience, people’s sorrows are always in danger of bursting out; it’s only through careful inattention that they can be contained.

‘Where do you get your ideas?’ people are always asking authors they admire, which I’ve always thought was another way of asking, ‘How did you get my ideas, which I didn’t know I had until you put words to them?’

Perhaps so many contemporary American writers write about modern middle-class families because a lot of us belong to that group ourselves and we’re immersed in its complexities and contradictions. Novelists also like to focus on characters who are at risk in some way, and I’d say right now the modern, middle-class American family seems quite at risk. Especially when it comes to aspirations.

I like the idea of being part of a literary heritage – it’s like chiming in on a long and involved conversation.

When I’m working on a novel, I’m not aware of following any sort of literary tradition – to me, the story seems genre-less, its own entity, which allows for the most freedom when it comes to creating characters and situations.

Suzanne Berne is an American writer. Her novel, A Crime in the Neighborhood, won the Orange Prize for Fiction.

[portersqbooks]

Suzanne Berne’s The Dogs of Littlefield out in paperback on January 10th

[damn-fine-books]

[litrant]

Who’s killing Fido? And Princess? And Max?

The Dogs of Littlefield: A Novel by Suzanne Berne (Simon and Schuster, $25).

Suzanne Berne, who won the Orange Prize in 1999 for A Crime in the Neigborhood, has got a fascinating sixth novel in The Dogs of Littlefield. 

Academic Clarice Watkins, a sociologist, moves to Littlefield, Mass., the epitome of contemporary suburban living, in order to conduct anthropological studies. She gets more than she bargained for, though; someone is poisoning the community’s dogs. 

Clarice’s cultural observations soon reveal the stress fractures beneath the façade of well-manicured lawns, well-appointed homes, and well-mannered residents as the tension mounts with each canine death. 

An outrageously crafted satire, The Dogs of Littlefield is peppered throughout with characters that are not only memorable in their own right, but also representative of our contemporary upscale culture, one in which therapists outnumber public schoolteachers.    

(Bonus points for the keeshond on the cover.)