The Stranger Next Door: A Novel by Amelie Nothomb, Carol Volk

From the Publisher

Emile and Juliette Hazel have just purchased what will be their final home, set in a little clearing an hour's drive from the nearest town. Here, they think, is the place for an idyllic retirement, isolated from the rest of the world save for one neighbor, a doctor, on the far side of the clearing. One day, after they have spent a week in the house, the Hazels' new neighbor comes knocking at their door. Narrated by Emile, this simple story of social obligation yields with impending menace to a deeper exploration of the dangerous cost of restraint. With the peculiar logic of a dream, the doctor continues, unbidden, to visit his neighbors daily. And as he does so, the seed of disquiet in the Hazels' parlor bursts into full horror as Emile is forced to come to grips not only with the stranger next door but also with his own inner darkness.

Kirkus Reviews

Country life and neighborliness are fat targets in this savage little story, the US debut for young Brussels-based Nothomb, whose previous five novels have won acclaim in France.

Émile Hazel, retired high-school classics teacher, relocates to the south of France with his wife Juliette, to what is for them a dream house, isolated and picturesque, and thus in every way the antithesis of their former city lives. On their second day of bliss, however, a knock on the door gives them a jolt, as their only neighbor, the grotesquely obese Dr. Bernardin, barges in for a cup of coffee. He stays for hours but won't converse, answering questions mostly in monosyllables. He proceeds to drop by punctually every day thereafter, with no change in attitude, forcing the Hazels to try a range of futile tactics to deter him. Even second-guessing fails: A dinner invitation to Bernardin and his wife, whom at first he steadfastly refuses to bring with him, results in a memorable evening as a bloated parody of a woman (nicknamed "the cyst" by her hosts) accompanies Bernardin and makes a meal of the chocolate sauce meant for dessert. The neighbor's solo visits continue, until finally Émile resorts to plain rudeness and shoves him violently out the door. The doctor does not return, but soon after a bout of insomnia allows Émile to rescue his neighbor from a suicide attempt, an act that binds them together in increasingly mysterious ways as the rescuer comes to realize the cruelty in his original gesture—and to make amends in a way that reveals alarming, unsuspected elements of his personality.

This isn't the first time that the veneer of civilization has been stripped away to show monstrous urges beneath, but the tables turn here in a particularly eerie, chilling manner, in a combination of psychological astuteness and considerable craftsmanship.

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