A Crime In the Neighborhood

A detailed Summary of A Crime In the Neighborhood

It was the summer of 1972 when Spring Hill, a Washington, D.C., suburb, got its first taste

of an increasingly violent, insecure modern world. The quiet residential area, whose inhabitants

traditionally left their doors unlocked and spent the summers attending one another's cookout, was

rocked by the news that 12-year-old Boyd Ellison had been raped and murdered, his body dumped

behind the local mall. While shaken residents organized a neighborhood watch program and clued

detectives in on anyone's suspicious behavior, the inhabitants of at least one house were distracted

by a tragedy of their own: 10-year-old Marsha Eberhardt's father, Larry, had run off with his

sister-in-law, leaving his wife and three children to manage on their own. Marsha, stunned by her

father's abandonment and having broken her ankle, spends the summer witnessing her mother's

desperate attempts to cope, the neighborhood's paranoid response to the murder and even the

country's disorientation over the unfolding Watergate scandal. The tension proves too great when

the Eberhardts' shy bachelor neighbor, Mr. Green, takes interest in Marsha's mother. Though

murder is the most visible crime in Marsha's neighborhood, it is by no means the only one

threw a barbecue for the whole neighborhood but no one showed except Marsha's mother, Lois.

father. Marsha's mother would make a point of waving to Mr. Green if she happened to be in the

have fabricated a story and having made false accusations about Mr. Green in the past. As a

time ... he looked sallow as he got out of his car, a little bruised around the mouth, and he had a

because he was generally withdrawn and socially awkward. Shortly after Boyd Ellison's death he

created it and we must live with it . Once I read this story I began to look at society a little bit

Approximate Word count = 1303
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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