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No Down Payment
The marital difficulties of four couples living in a southern California housing development become intertwined. Among the unhappy couples are ne'er-do-well Jerry Flagg and his long-suffering wife Isabelle, flirtatious Leola Boone and her sadistic husband Troy, hard working Herman Kreitzer and his understanding wife Betty, and newlyweds Jean and David Martin.
- GenresFiction
312 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
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September 6, 2024
Ace # H333: tagline: “An explosive novel of the intimate relationships between young couples in a typical suburban community.” In No Down Payment, McPartland takes a sharp turn away from writing crime thrillers to a suburban life story about various couples in a new housing development and how they get along until they don’t, both the couples and the neighborly group as a whole.
Sunrise Hills is the development, along Bayshore, twenty miles south of San Francisco. There are four couples involved in these hi-jinks: David and Jean Martin, Herman and Betty Kreitzer and their two children; Jerry and Isbel Flagg and their little boy; and Troy and Leola Noon. The movie of the same title was released in 1957 starring Joanne Woodward and Tony Randall.
Jerry is quickly shown to the lecher of the bunch, ogling Jean Martin with her tall legs which she “handled like a showgirl.” David Martin was the tall, quiet leader who worked in Verdun Laboratories, where a thousand people many with Phd’s toiled on secret energy devices. He cold not talk about his work with any of the others in the subdivision, causing a bit of a fracture. Jean had married him, seeing how successful and important he was in the 1950’s world. Herman had a shop where he sold small kitchen appliances and the like. Jerry was the car salesman. Isobel, his wife, hated all the other couples, although Jean found her hatred too small and insignificant to attach any importance to. Isobel was cruel to Leola, a special cruelty masked by light friendship. Leola was younger and more childlike than the others.
Jean did not like Leola, saying she dressed sloppy and always had the scent of rutting. Troy, her husband, always had deliberate movements, did not smile when he said hello, and did not like to shake hands. Troy’s first marriage had been to Hildy, met her Monday, married her Friday, until he found she was a tramp and a bitch and repeatedly slammed her into the wall until the police pulled him off her. But now, he wanted to apply to be Chief of Police of Sunrise Hills.
As the story goes on, we learn more about our characters. Jean has a vicious streak when it comes to Leola and wants to invite her over only to break her down. She also looks at her husband and tells him that there are two kinds of men, those who just get by and are like gadgets that can be replaced and those who will do what it takes to compete and win. She tells David he is the second kind, not the first.
Jerry and Isobel were another story. He liked to get drunk Sundays and lock the kid out so they could have a matinee, but the kid drove them crazy and Isobel was deathly afraid of having another kid. So, Jerry thought having the kid, who screamed and drove them crazy, was turning their marriage into hell. He cheated on her and she got even by cheating on him with a young salesman at the firm. She thought it was all pretense, living with these nice people in this nice place. She envied Betty her perfect kids and Jean her perfect body, particularly her perfect breasts. But as perfect as Jean appears to be, she is frustrated by her barrenness. If she only had a child, she might feel complete.
But the suburban peace is shattered one afternoon when, with David away in Los Angeles on business, Troy, tired of being treated like less because he was an uneducated hillbilly, pushed his way into Jean’s home, tore her clothes off, and raped her. Jean’s reaction was to keep it quiet out of embaressment, not realizing that Troy would get drunk and brag about it to his wife, Leola, who would go to the Kreitzers for comfort. While Jean goes off to Carmel to think about what happened and what she should do, Herman Kreitzer decides he is going to tell Troy that he needs to move out of the neighborhood. They cannot have someone like him living there. And, you wouldn’t think Troy would leave, but when he finds out that an African-American family is going to move in, he thinks it a great joke on the neighbors he can’t stand because they think they are better than him.
Ultimately, McPartland shows the dark underbelly of the vaunted suburban experience is something at times other than what you might see on television advertisements and smiling billboards. The happy neighbors are not so happy, not so neighborly, and even at that time there were still neighborhoods that were red-lined, meaning not all were welcome. The centerpiece of this novel is the shocking crime and its aftermath, making the novel far darker and forbidding than one might have imagined from the cover or from the light-hearted way most authors at the time dealt with four couples in suburban life.
Sunrise Hills is the development, along Bayshore, twenty miles south of San Francisco. There are four couples involved in these hi-jinks: David and Jean Martin, Herman and Betty Kreitzer and their two children; Jerry and Isbel Flagg and their little boy; and Troy and Leola Noon. The movie of the same title was released in 1957 starring Joanne Woodward and Tony Randall.
Jerry is quickly shown to the lecher of the bunch, ogling Jean Martin with her tall legs which she “handled like a showgirl.” David Martin was the tall, quiet leader who worked in Verdun Laboratories, where a thousand people many with Phd’s toiled on secret energy devices. He cold not talk about his work with any of the others in the subdivision, causing a bit of a fracture. Jean had married him, seeing how successful and important he was in the 1950’s world. Herman had a shop where he sold small kitchen appliances and the like. Jerry was the car salesman. Isobel, his wife, hated all the other couples, although Jean found her hatred too small and insignificant to attach any importance to. Isobel was cruel to Leola, a special cruelty masked by light friendship. Leola was younger and more childlike than the others.
Jean did not like Leola, saying she dressed sloppy and always had the scent of rutting. Troy, her husband, always had deliberate movements, did not smile when he said hello, and did not like to shake hands. Troy’s first marriage had been to Hildy, met her Monday, married her Friday, until he found she was a tramp and a bitch and repeatedly slammed her into the wall until the police pulled him off her. But now, he wanted to apply to be Chief of Police of Sunrise Hills.
As the story goes on, we learn more about our characters. Jean has a vicious streak when it comes to Leola and wants to invite her over only to break her down. She also looks at her husband and tells him that there are two kinds of men, those who just get by and are like gadgets that can be replaced and those who will do what it takes to compete and win. She tells David he is the second kind, not the first.
Jerry and Isobel were another story. He liked to get drunk Sundays and lock the kid out so they could have a matinee, but the kid drove them crazy and Isobel was deathly afraid of having another kid. So, Jerry thought having the kid, who screamed and drove them crazy, was turning their marriage into hell. He cheated on her and she got even by cheating on him with a young salesman at the firm. She thought it was all pretense, living with these nice people in this nice place. She envied Betty her perfect kids and Jean her perfect body, particularly her perfect breasts. But as perfect as Jean appears to be, she is frustrated by her barrenness. If she only had a child, she might feel complete.
But the suburban peace is shattered one afternoon when, with David away in Los Angeles on business, Troy, tired of being treated like less because he was an uneducated hillbilly, pushed his way into Jean’s home, tore her clothes off, and raped her. Jean’s reaction was to keep it quiet out of embaressment, not realizing that Troy would get drunk and brag about it to his wife, Leola, who would go to the Kreitzers for comfort. While Jean goes off to Carmel to think about what happened and what she should do, Herman Kreitzer decides he is going to tell Troy that he needs to move out of the neighborhood. They cannot have someone like him living there. And, you wouldn’t think Troy would leave, but when he finds out that an African-American family is going to move in, he thinks it a great joke on the neighbors he can’t stand because they think they are better than him.
Ultimately, McPartland shows the dark underbelly of the vaunted suburban experience is something at times other than what you might see on television advertisements and smiling billboards. The happy neighbors are not so happy, not so neighborly, and even at that time there were still neighborhoods that were red-lined, meaning not all were welcome. The centerpiece of this novel is the shocking crime and its aftermath, making the novel far darker and forbidding than one might have imagined from the cover or from the light-hearted way most authors at the time dealt with four couples in suburban life.
January 28, 2025
Won't You Be a Neighbor?
🖊 Ah, the joys of living in suburbia! This novel tells it all, from work to marriage problems. If it did not have the vulgar language, it would be a five-star novel for me. 🗑 Conversely, other readers may find this story their cup of java with a slice of coffee cake.
📕Published – 1966.
🎥 1957 movie version with Tony Randall, Joanne Woodward.
જ⁀🔵Internet Archive.
༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻ ༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻
𝕄𝕪 𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕓𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕜𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟:
ℙ𝕝𝕠𝕥: ★★★★★
ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕥: ★★★★★
𝕎𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕤𝕥𝕪𝕝𝕖: ★★★★★
𝕃𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕦𝕒𝕘𝕖: ★☆☆☆☆ (use of a vulgar word)
𝔾𝕣𝕒𝕞𝕞𝕒𝕣: ★★★★☆
𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘: ★★★★★
𝕄𝕪 𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟: ★★★☆☆
𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘: (4.0)
🖊 Ah, the joys of living in suburbia! This novel tells it all, from work to marriage problems. If it did not have the vulgar language, it would be a five-star novel for me. 🗑 Conversely, other readers may find this story their cup of java with a slice of coffee cake.
📕Published – 1966.
🎥 1957 movie version with Tony Randall, Joanne Woodward.
જ⁀🔵Internet Archive.
༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻ ༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻
𝕄𝕪 𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕓𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕜𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟:
ℙ𝕝𝕠𝕥: ★★★★★
ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕥: ★★★★★
𝕎𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕤𝕥𝕪𝕝𝕖: ★★★★★
𝕃𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕦𝕒𝕘𝕖: ★☆☆☆☆ (use of a vulgar word)
𝔾𝕣𝕒𝕞𝕞𝕒𝕣: ★★★★☆
𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘: ★★★★★
𝕄𝕪 𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟: ★★★☆☆
𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘: (4.0)
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