Jack Ketchum has a tendency to fictionalize real life crime stories. He accomplished this in "Off Season," "Joyride," and here in "The Girl Next Door." In 1960's Indiana, Sylvia Likens and her little sister moved in with Gertrude Baniszewski while their parents went out of town. Baniszewski, her children, and several neighborhood children tortured and eventually murdered Likens over a period of months. At the trial, the children involved in the crime got off with an insignificant punishment, leading to outbursts of rage among the community and anyone with an ounce of moral fiber. In what must surely rank as one of our justice system's lowest moments, Gertrude herself was eventually released from prison, dying peacefully several years later somewhere in Iowa. This case serves as the loose outline for Ketchum's diabolical novel.

Set in the seemingly bucolic era of 1950's America, "The Girl Next Door" starts in the present day with our narrator, David, setting the stage for a flashback to that peaceful time in American history when Ike was in the White House, McCarthy chased Commies out of the State Department, and the biggest fear for most people was the realization that the USSR had the bomb. For David, there is a worse fear from that time, something buried deep in his heart and in his mind that needs telling before it drives him over the brink of sanity. David's childhood was marred by a horrific event, made even more horrific by the fact that he stood by and watched it happen without doing anything to stop the nightmare.

When David was a child, he lived next door to Ruth and her three sons. Everyone in the neighborhood loved to hang out at Ruth's house, even though the father of the children no longer lived there. Ruth allowed the boys who came over to drink some beer, watch TV, and generally goof off. Ruth treated the kids like adults, which impressed David to no end because his own parents do not get along whatsoever. Going to Ruth's is a great way to blow off some steam if you can put up with Ruth's occasional tirades about her worthless ex-husband.

This is Ketchum, so the story gradually moves into realms of unspeakable evil. The trouble starts when Meg Loughlin and her crippled sister Sarah move in with Ruth. Meg and Sarah's parents died in a car accident, and Ruth is the only family they have left. Life is fine at first, but David realizes gradually that Meg is having big problems with Ruth. Ruth gets nasty with Meg, meting out harsh punishments for innocuous behavior. Then Meg and Sarah begin to suffer verbal assaults from Ruth, often times in front of David and other boys in the neighborhood. Ruth's rants begin to take on an insanity and incoherency that frightens David. Ultimately, Meg ends up locked in a bomb shelter in the basement, where the real pain begins. All of the kids in the area participate in the torture and debasement of Meg, overseen by Ruth. The final indignity committed against Ruth is so horrible I refuse to refer to it here.

The violence in the book is horrible and stomach churning, but the cruelty takes a back seat to the moral lessons Ketchum is trying to convey. While reading this book, Hannah Arendt's phrase "the banality of evil" repeatedly came to mind. These people are not monsters springing out of closets or hostile aliens invading the earth. Ruth and the children involved are everyday people caught up in an unexplainable web of heartless and devastating malevolence. Even David is caught up in the unfolding events, although he does not take part in the actual deeds. It is safe to argue that David's role is worse than those who commit the crimes because he knows it is wrong and does nothing to stop them until it is too late. "The Girl Next Door" is not a horror novel per se; it is a morality play. Ketchum draws us into this warped world and forces us to condemn David while at the same time recognizing that we very well might do the same thing if it was us in his shoes.

You will not soon forget this grim and unsettling novel. Ketchum penetrates depths here that he rarely plumbs in his other books. It is a darn shame "The Girl Next Door" is not available in a mass-market paperback edition. Many people want to read it, and an introduction by none other than Stephen King lends a stamp of credibility to the book. Look around for a copy, but think long and hard before shelling out large amounts of dough.


The single, most horrifying novel I have ever read...   January 24, 2000
 38 out of 45 found this review helpful

I had heard dark rumors for years about this guy Jack Ketchum (mostly due to his infamous OFF SEASON) but could never find any of his books. For a writer this good, his stuff is amazingly difficult to come by. Well, all I can say is if you haven't read any Jack Ketchum, get thee to the book search page and order something...ANYTHING... by this guy! His fiction is more alive and immediate than just about any other author I can think of off hand. Forget about the fact that he's lumped into the "horror" genre (not that's there's neccesarily anything wrong with that :)) -- this is just good writing. Period.

Now, about THE GIRL NEXT DOOR: Jesus H. Christ! That's all I could say after finally finishing this book in one marathon 4-hour session. This book is tough. Uncompromising. Brutal. And believe me, whatever ideas you may get based on this review or any of the others...they're WRONG. You may think you're prepared for this book after hearing us tell you about it but you're not.

Trust me. You're not.

Not remotely.

The only other thing I can think of to say is that I have rarely experienced a piece of fiction that is this horrifying and yet this honest, this psychologically and emotionally true. And that is about the highest praise I can imagine.

Read it. Now.


Overwhelmingly Brutal Realism *Should* Make You Squirm   May 13, 2004
 37 out of 45 found this review helpful

Ketchum's novel should make you squirm with discomfort, not because it is a horror book, but because it is horrifyingly closer to the real side of human brutality than to those fantastical drafted gore fests we sink our teeth into when our tongues require the taste of terror.

There is a novel by Luanne Rice called Stone Heart that crept into the hidden realm of Domestic Abuse without the benefit of rose colored glasses, and left me breathless in the wake of such an emotional journey.

"Girl Next Door" took me through that journey again, but this time the passage was darker and filled with unaccountable dread. "How could this happen?" you will say. "Why didn't anybody DO anything?" The tide of emotion you will feel sweeping over you, washing your pity in tears as salty as the ocean and swirling the intense sadness through your soul, will leave you touched by a profound sense of loss.

In the 1950's, life was simple for a group of neighborhood children, living in a close knit, out of the way community. David was a boy back then, when Meg and Susan Loughlin move in next door with Ruth Chandler and her three sons, after the death of their parents in a car accident that left Meg scarred and Susan crippled.

David doesn't mind playing with Ruth's boys, and often found Ruth to be quite pleasant, in that she would treat the boys as adults and even allow them beer at times. But Ruth had a legendary temper, well known throughout the neighborhood.

David is enchanted by Meg, and therefore hangs around more than ever next door, wanting to be near her. Ruth, unstable before, begins rushing down towards the pits of insanity at a noticeably accelerated pace; and makes the Loughlin girls targets for her anger-infused mania. Descending from verbal abuse, to overworking Meg at chores, to her final psychotic imprisonment of the two innocent girls, Ketchum's painting of Ruth in the colors of derangement and lunacy is vivid and realistically unsettling.

Ruth slowly begins to allow others to join her in terrorizing the girls, and though David is mortified at the scenes unfolding right in front of him, he does nothing and tells no one about Ruth's basement until it is too late. I will not divulge any further information, but with the story being told from David's viewpoint, you can feel and understand his hesitation and fear, and remember that he himself was still just a child.

In this book, you may find yourself wishing that Ketchum was less skilled in his writings, so that you wouldn't find yourself so drawn into the characters and the appalling scenario. This book will make you angry and sad, leave you feeling helpless in your inability to change the outcome, and that is exactly what you should be feeling. You will not walk away untouched. By far, one of the most riveting and revolting horror books I have ever read, well worth the money you spend.


Ketchum's one of the best!   July 1, 2007
 36 out of 41 found this review helpful

For almost three decades now, Jack Ketchum has been a writing legend. He goes the extra mile to deliver a first-rate rock `em, shock `em, jolt `em ride!

--Joseph McGee, author of In the Wake of the Night, Phil's Place and Darkness Won't Rest: Phils Place II


Ketchum's most disturbing work ever...   November 29, 1999
 13 out of 15 found this review helpful

Jack Ketchum, a very nice man judging from an interview I once read, again unleashes his darker side in what's arguably his most shocking book yet. Set in the Fifties, regarded by some as a bland or boring decade, this book chronicles the abuse, torture and murder of a luckless young girl left in the care of a depraved, sadistic family. (Anyone who eats hot dogs, beans AND saurkraut all in one meal HAS to be depraved!) The book is well-crafted, which somehow makes the events therein all the more disturbing; the atrocities are detailed with Ketchum's characteristic lack of restraint and not for the faint of heart. Ketchum's "dark side," however, is no worse than the dark events that inspired this novel. Over a period of four months in 1965, a teenager named Sylvia Likens was systematically abused and tortured to death by a family of low-lifes, and their friends, in Indianapolis. In terms of individual suffering this ranks as The Crime Of The Century, and there was no real payback as there was for the main villain in Ketchum's novel. God forbid that such a crime should happen next door to anybody, ever again.