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The Neighbor
Jessie Clemons is out of cash and on the run, from his job, his neighbors, the cops and his life. The Neighbor is a Middle American odyssey in which truck stops and farmhouses stand in for the Aegean Islands and the neon signs of convenience stores are the sirens of dissipation. Told in a unique double-narrative form, with sardonic humour and grim realism, Caleb Caudell's debut novel is an unflinching look at the desolations and consolations of the hidden people of the heartland
- GenresFiction
Kindle Edition
Published June 19, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 17, 2021
Read my full review here: https://elbrooks.substack.com/p/the-n...
"A mist of soggy fast-food burgers, bottles of pills, daytime TV, and apathetic institutions, rises up from our lakes and rivers to enchant the vision of those on the outskirts of our farms, of our wasting industrial cities, and our housing developments. It is so pervasive that we barely acknowledge it, but so thick that we cannot see beyond our immediate day, our immediate block, our current job, our most urgent needs. The world of The Neighbor, Caleb Caudell’s debut novel from Bonfire Books, is darker than I expected from its marketing as a “Middle American” odyssey because it is darker than my own experience of middle America. It is not a world of stable families and communities perpetuating their way of life and there are no self-actualized heroes ready to take charge of their own destiny. The helplessness of many of the characters can feel oppressive at times, but it is not a vision of impenetrable blackness, nor a nihilistic spitting upon the world."
"A mist of soggy fast-food burgers, bottles of pills, daytime TV, and apathetic institutions, rises up from our lakes and rivers to enchant the vision of those on the outskirts of our farms, of our wasting industrial cities, and our housing developments. It is so pervasive that we barely acknowledge it, but so thick that we cannot see beyond our immediate day, our immediate block, our current job, our most urgent needs. The world of The Neighbor, Caleb Caudell’s debut novel from Bonfire Books, is darker than I expected from its marketing as a “Middle American” odyssey because it is darker than my own experience of middle America. It is not a world of stable families and communities perpetuating their way of life and there are no self-actualized heroes ready to take charge of their own destiny. The helplessness of many of the characters can feel oppressive at times, but it is not a vision of impenetrable blackness, nor a nihilistic spitting upon the world."
January 17, 2022
Caudell addresses many absurdities of modern American life in the Neighbor. Raw with themes of how we drift through our lives numbing what's real, distracted from what's real, unable to face what's right in front of us, up to, and including, the biological animal reality of our bodies. Hilarious at turns. The Neighbor showcases both callousness and tenderness, as well as the irony of our existence within capitalism to have our everyday reality determined by the whims of a system that could care less about us. I was brought to tears at multiple points, from the sweetness and the sour, and was left with painful joyful truths about my own life.
July 18, 2022
Plot wise, this is a fairly straightforward novel about a man whose heart is in the right place but discoveres he is powerless in a system that chews him up and spits him out.
The power of this book is in Caudell's prose. Syrupy and humid prose that makes your brain sweat. Bittersweet observations. Original imagery throughout. Almost no cliche or tropes at all. Sympathetic to its characters but ruthlessly describing the reality they inhabit.
A hidden gem of a novel that I highly recommend.
The power of this book is in Caudell's prose. Syrupy and humid prose that makes your brain sweat. Bittersweet observations. Original imagery throughout. Almost no cliche or tropes at all. Sympathetic to its characters but ruthlessly describing the reality they inhabit.
A hidden gem of a novel that I highly recommend.
October 30, 2022
The word 'neighbour' is a loaded term in our culture. In law it refers to a person who could be harmed by our actions. In everyday parlance it refers to a person who lives near us or towards whom we want to express warmth.
The reason for the concept’s prominence in our culture is obvious. The second greatest commandment, according to Jesus in the New Testament, is to love our neighbours as ourselves.
As Christianity has declined, so too has neighbourliness. Whether because we live in overpriced cells in large cities; because we no longer see our neighbours at church every Sunday; or because they vote for the wrong political party, the loss of community spirit—the loss of communities—is perhaps the most tangible sign of American (and, more generally, Western) decline.
Caleb Caudell does not attempt to grapple with these titanic and ultimately political issues in The Neighbor. At least not directly. He simply wants to show a snapshot of this world for what it is. Spiritless. Lonely. Desperate. Suicidal. And in this more modest quest his novel is an unqualified success.
Jessie Clemons lives in a small town in the American Midwest. He is surrounded by drugs, which he dabbles in himself from time to time with the help of Ace, the local dealer.
Jessie has a complex relationship with Ace. Sometimes they get high and party together. Other times Jessie seethes over how this degenerate has things so easy while Jessie—an honest, working man—can’t seem to get from zero to one.
Jessie finds himself in what we might call the Raskolnikov Dilemma. Why, in a godless world—a world without supervision or divine judgment—would one man not take from another in order to improve his position in life? Especially when he is desperate and his potential victim is a man like Ace.
It is one thing to rob a man in his prime. It is one thing to take from a man struggling to get by with a long life ahead of him. But it is not so bad to take from a dying man who cannot take anything with him.
When tragedy strikes, the answer reveals itself to Jessie. He pays Ace a fateful visit, a mistake which pushes him onto the road.
None of this is a spoiler. As in Dostoyevsky’s novel, the crime is the prologue, the motivations and the punishment the novel’s real subject matter.
Caudell skilfully switches the perspective from before the crime is committed to after, which enables us to feel closer to and better understand Clemons.
Here is a man who has committed a horrible crime for which he will not accept responsibility. Yet we cannot help but root for Clemons given everything he has endured.
On the way we visit gas stations and parking lots. Diners serving up culinary poison. Pigsties and ghosts from happier times haunting devastated, hollowed-out towns.
There is little by way of plot here. That is not to say The Neighbor is shallow. Like many great literary works, the story is of one man’s journey to the end of his resources, and what pushes him onto this path.
We are left to wonder: if we were in Clemons’ position, how would we act ourselves? No honest person can read this book and answer the question with certainty due to the humanity with which Caudell renders this compelling story.
The ultimate message here—one perhaps the author only intuited—is that all of us are Clemons. We are simply fortunate enough to not be faced with the decisions which presented themselves to him.
We are invited to feel something—maybe empathy, maybe even forgiveness—towards a young man who has committed his society’s highest crime. He could be our neighbour. He could be our brother. He could be ourselves.
The reason for the concept’s prominence in our culture is obvious. The second greatest commandment, according to Jesus in the New Testament, is to love our neighbours as ourselves.
As Christianity has declined, so too has neighbourliness. Whether because we live in overpriced cells in large cities; because we no longer see our neighbours at church every Sunday; or because they vote for the wrong political party, the loss of community spirit—the loss of communities—is perhaps the most tangible sign of American (and, more generally, Western) decline.
Caleb Caudell does not attempt to grapple with these titanic and ultimately political issues in The Neighbor. At least not directly. He simply wants to show a snapshot of this world for what it is. Spiritless. Lonely. Desperate. Suicidal. And in this more modest quest his novel is an unqualified success.
Jessie Clemons lives in a small town in the American Midwest. He is surrounded by drugs, which he dabbles in himself from time to time with the help of Ace, the local dealer.
Jessie has a complex relationship with Ace. Sometimes they get high and party together. Other times Jessie seethes over how this degenerate has things so easy while Jessie—an honest, working man—can’t seem to get from zero to one.
Jessie finds himself in what we might call the Raskolnikov Dilemma. Why, in a godless world—a world without supervision or divine judgment—would one man not take from another in order to improve his position in life? Especially when he is desperate and his potential victim is a man like Ace.
It is one thing to rob a man in his prime. It is one thing to take from a man struggling to get by with a long life ahead of him. But it is not so bad to take from a dying man who cannot take anything with him.
When tragedy strikes, the answer reveals itself to Jessie. He pays Ace a fateful visit, a mistake which pushes him onto the road.
None of this is a spoiler. As in Dostoyevsky’s novel, the crime is the prologue, the motivations and the punishment the novel’s real subject matter.
Caudell skilfully switches the perspective from before the crime is committed to after, which enables us to feel closer to and better understand Clemons.
Here is a man who has committed a horrible crime for which he will not accept responsibility. Yet we cannot help but root for Clemons given everything he has endured.
On the way we visit gas stations and parking lots. Diners serving up culinary poison. Pigsties and ghosts from happier times haunting devastated, hollowed-out towns.
There is little by way of plot here. That is not to say The Neighbor is shallow. Like many great literary works, the story is of one man’s journey to the end of his resources, and what pushes him onto this path.
We are left to wonder: if we were in Clemons’ position, how would we act ourselves? No honest person can read this book and answer the question with certainty due to the humanity with which Caudell renders this compelling story.
The ultimate message here—one perhaps the author only intuited—is that all of us are Clemons. We are simply fortunate enough to not be faced with the decisions which presented themselves to him.
We are invited to feel something—maybe empathy, maybe even forgiveness—towards a young man who has committed his society’s highest crime. He could be our neighbour. He could be our brother. He could be ourselves.
November 13, 2023
This is the second book by Caleb I've read and this was also great. There's some great emotional punches and I was hoping things would go a different direction for our protagonist but I really liked the book.
January 21, 2024
I am due to read this book again, and in the interest of full disclosure, the author is one of my closest, oldest, friends. Typically I might avoid saying much of anything about such a friend's work, but I genuinely enjoyed this novel - if we weren't friends I'd probably not have encountered it otherwise.
I will flesh out my review following my re-read of this novel, but for now it's worth noting that Caudell has captured something in "The Neighbor" about life in south central Indiana in the early 21st century that is so relatable and true that I have often wondered if those who have never counted themselves among the great unwashed Hoosier rabble could possibly understand how fitting many of the depictions here really are (though I have no doubt that those who have spent time in the Midwest, the Rust Belt, etc. will find plenty to relate to as well).
I will flesh out my review following my re-read of this novel, but for now it's worth noting that Caudell has captured something in "The Neighbor" about life in south central Indiana in the early 21st century that is so relatable and true that I have often wondered if those who have never counted themselves among the great unwashed Hoosier rabble could possibly understand how fitting many of the depictions here really are (though I have no doubt that those who have spent time in the Midwest, the Rust Belt, etc. will find plenty to relate to as well).
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews