The cast of Neighbors is stringently limited, as perhaps befits a comedy of bad manners. The cast consists of Earl Keese, his wife Enid, his daughter Elaine, Harry, Ramona, Baby, their wolfhound, and the seemingly interchangeable Greavys, who are in reality father and son. To be sure, a few friends of Keese and Enid are mentioned and Keese does talk to some of them on the telephone, but they are essentially bit-players.

Since the novel describes the stresses and heightened intensity of the last day of Keese's life, all the characters are seen through his highly emotional and paranoid point of view. Keese is in fact a man about to have a heart attack, mainly because his mind and body are stressed to the breaking point. (However, Keese acknowledges to himself that he had felt that his life was essentially over as he had accepted an existence of...