Review: In The Neighborhood by Peter Lovenheim

Title: In The Neighborhood: The Search for Community on an American Street, One Sleepover at a Time
Author: Peter Lovenheim
Genre: Non-fiction, memoir
Publication: 2010
Source: Library

Just a note: I had special interest in reading this because Peter Lovenheim is from my city, and this book takes place in said city in a very nearby town. :)

Summary: After a shocking murder-suicide takes place on Lovenheim's street, he begins to wonder: could this violent crime have been prevented if there was a bigger sense of community in his neighborhood? No one knows anyone else on the street and therefore didn't see the signs that this violence was about to take place. Because of this, he sets out to get to know his neighbors and create a community by asking them for a simple favor: can I spend the night? Several neighbors accept, and Peter delves into their lives by sleeping over and witnessing their lives from the inside as well as interviewing them. Lovenheim asks what it means to live amongst strangers and wonders what the consequences of that might be. With his sleepovers, he attempts to transform his street into a community.

My Thoughts: First things first, I enjoyed all the references to my hometown... that is always cool to see in a book, right? But I also thought his project was quite interesting. It made me think about my own street, and, for the most part, he's right. A lot of us do live amongst strangers. There is absolutely NO sense of community on my street which is really quite sad. In the book, one of Lovenheim's neighbors states that she was baking once and needed vanilla, and, knowning no one on the street, sent her husband to the store in a snowstorm instead of borrowing it from a neighbor. This really is what many neighborhoods have turned into, which is what he is trying to change.

Some of the neighbors Lovenheim introduces become central "characters," such as Lou, the quirky retired doctor, and Patti, their young single-mother neighbor, a former radiologist who diagnosed her own breast cancer and is now dying from it. I felt as though I got to know these two neighbors and became intrigued by their stories and attached to their characters, though they are real people. There are a few other neighbors as well who have their own interesting lives, but are not featured as heavily in the book.

I felt this book was part memoir and part sociology book. It delves into a lot of research and questions about community, which was interesting, but not really my cup of tea. I definitely enjoyed the personal stories a lot more. I was happy to see that Lovenheim was in fact able to create a somewhat small sense of community, which was more than they ever had before, and that he began to accomplish his goal. He used this new-found community to help Patti which was really the best outcome of the whole story and project.

All in all, this was an interesting book with a very intriguing concept. I'd recommend it to those that are interested in sociology and the way we live today. I liked it, but felt it dragged a bit in those scientific parts, although I can see the necessity of it in the book and felt that it was very well researched. Buuuut, being an English major and totally not a science person, I'm more into straight-up memoirs.

My Rating: 3/5