In "Neighbors" Thomas Berger makes dark comic art out of neighborliness. The novel begins quietly, as Earl and Enid Keese, in their exurban house at the end of a lonely road, wonder if they shouldn't have asked the new couple next door over for a drink. (p. 1)

[From] edgy beginnings in rudeness and deceit, Mr. Berger develops a tale of domestic guerrilla warfare next to which the broadest television sit-com seems pallid and genteel….

This immensely funny knock-about farce manages to express serious matters without advertising them as such. At one point Harry casually observes that whereas Earl thinks results matter, he himself values motives, and the distinction could serve as a dim, shifting philosophical center to Mr. Berger's story. As the neighbors impose pain and humiliation on Earl, he does begin to live closer to his own springs of action—the capacity for violent aggression that lies...