crucible of his redemption: being forced out of his comfort zone of complacency and habit has provided him with an excitement he has never known before. As Earl comes to recognize value in his neighbors, he realizes that his wife is a distrustful alcoholic, his daughter is an underachiever and petty thief, and that his new neighbors can provide him with an escape from his existence of insignificance and emotional impotence. From a nightmare comes hope and a strengthened resolve to survive. In his study of Berger, writer Stanley Trachtenberg describes Neighbors as an existentialist parable in which "the loss of coherence between various aspects of self comically fragments the notion of identity and thus fictionalizes the existential concept of authenticity as a shaping condition of it." In a 1980 newspaper interview, Berger said of Neighbors, "As my 10th novel, begun at the close of my 20th year as a published novelist, it is appropriately a bizarre celebration of whatever gift I have, the strangest of all my narratives . . . the morality of this work, like that of all my other volumes, will be in doubt until the end of the narrative – and perhaps to the end of eternity, now that I think about it." Characters Earl Keese Enid Keese Elaine Keese Harry Ramona Adaptations A film version was released in 1981, starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. It was also adapted into a play by Eve Summer, which premiered in Worcester, Massachusetts in 2007. References External links NPR.org | Tom Perrotta Hails Suburban Sendup 'Neighbors' 1980 American novels American novels adapted into films American novels adapted into plays Novels by Thomas Berger (novelist)