A Crime In the Neighbourhood

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

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

traditionally left their doors unlocked and exhausted the summers attending one anothers cookout, was

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

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

detectives in on anyones suspicious behavior, the inhabitants of at least one house were distracted

by a tragedy of their declare: 10-year-old Marsha Eberhardts go, Larry, had run off with his

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

fathers abandonment and having broken her ankle, spends the summer witnessing her mothers

desperate attempts to cope, the neighborhoods paranoid response to the murder and even the

countrys disorientation everywhere the unfolding Watergate scandal. The tension proves too great when

the Eberhardts shy live neighbor, Mr. Green, takes interest in Marshas mother. Though

murder is the most visible crime in Marshas neighborhood, it is by no means the only one,

Marshas father and auntie run off together and Marsha wrongly accusses Mr. Green for the death

of Boyd Ellison.

Marshas father had left before the summer Boyd Ellison was killed. The divorce had a

tremendous impact on the whole family. Marshas twin brother and sister spent the summer away

on vacation and since Marsha had her ankle in a cast, she wasnt able to do things most kids did

during the summer vacation like swimming. Marsha remembered it was only aft(prenominal) my father left

and Boyd Ellison was killed that I started to wonder to myself what might happen next.(35)

Since Marsha had so much time on her hands...

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