Neighbors and Other Stories

Summary

A bold and haunting debut story collection that follows various characters as they navigate the day-to-day perils of Jim Crow racism, from Diane Oliver, a missing figure in the canon of twentieth-century African American literature

A remarkable talent far ahead of her time, Diane Oliver died in 1966 at the age of 22, leaving behind these crisply told and often chilling tales that explore race and racism in 1950s and 60s America. In this first and only collection by a masterful storyteller finally taking her rightful place in the canon, Oliver’s insightful stories reverberate into the present day.

There’s the nightmarish “The Closet on the Top Floor” in which Winifred, the first Black student at her newly integrated college, starts to physically disappear. In “Mint Juleps Not Served Here,” a couple living deep in a forest with their son go to bloody lengths to protect him. “Spiders Cry without Tears,” tells of a couple, Meg and Walt, who are confronted by prejudices and strains of interracial and extramarital love. The high-tension titular story follows a nervous older sister the night before her little brother is set to desegregate his school.

These are incisive and intimate portraits of African American families in everyday moments of anxiety and crisis that look at how they use agency to navigate their predicaments. As much a social and historical document as it is a taut, engrossing collection, this is an exceptional literary feat from a crucial once-lost figure of letters.