The Boy Next Door, Mostly

Iris Lin has lived next door to the same retired schoolteacher for eleven years. When Mrs Halloway finally sells the house and moves to her daughter’s in Vermont, Iris expects the new neighbours will be loud, polite, or absent. They are none of those things.

Daniel Park is a divorced architect with a daughter named Mae and a kitchen that, as of move-in day, has no functioning stove. He waves over the hedge. He asks to borrow a casserole dish. He brings it back, washed, with a thank-you note. That is the entire arc of the first three weeks. The arc of the rest of the autumn is something else.