Neighbors is, among other things, a smooth but corrosive satire on bad manners and the lack of neighborliness, or even fundamental respect for others, in contemporary society. Thomas Berger's dark comedy of manners opens when Harry and Ramona, an obnoxious couple, move in next door to Earl Keese's isolated suburban house, and spend a day and a night imposing themselves in offensive ways on the apparently innocuous and middle-aged Keese. Harry and Ramona are not so much three-dimensional characters as caricatured social monsters, like the grasping and avaricious characters in Ben Jonson's seventeenthcentury comedies, who often seem to be personified vices. Both Harry and Ramona cheerfully take advantage of Keese's good will through numerous impositions that often masquerade as good fellowship in America. Harry virtually invites his wife and himself to dinner on the first day.....
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