Dangerous Neighbors by Beth Kephart

It is the late summer of 1876 and the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia is on. Seventeen-year-old Katherine's twin sister Anna died this past February 6th and she is convinced it was her fault. So one hot September day, Katherine sets out for the exhibition determined to end her life.  

After the death of Anna in February, Katherine had taken to walking the ridge along the river or the heights of St. George's Hill, trying to find the courage for what she plans to do. Meanwhile her father and mother appear to have gone on living, having breakfast served by their cook, Jeannie Bea and reading their morning papers. Her father who works at the Philadelphia National Bank, is constantly looking for trends and indicators for the future, while her mother is preoccupied with women's rights, and tea and crackers. There was no investigation in to Anna's death.

Katherine has waited on their front porch for her mother to come home from one her many ladies' meetings, or outside her bedroom door hoping for the chance to tell her what happened. "Let me tell you what has happened, she has tried to say. Blame me so that you might forgive me, so that I might forgive myself." 

But her mother simply insists that the past remain in the past and that they look to the future. Katherine knows that when she is gone, life for her parents will simply go on as before.

So on this day Katherine has chosen the Colosseum as the place "she will fly and soon feel nothing." She enters the Colosseum at 4PM and takes the Otis elevator to the balconied tower. There are stairs to cliimb higher, but also a set of  then windows above the cyclorama that lead out onto the roof. From there it is a straight drop onto the street. "The smack of absolution."  Once out on the roof, Katherine now has to wait until five o'clock when the crowds leave.

When a hawk perches near her and stares at the window, Katherine realizes that Bennett, her sister Anna's lover has followed her. He's been following her for months. With one leg out the window he tells her not to do what she's planning, that this is not what Anna would want. He pulls her through the window ending her attempt.

Katherine and Anna had been born twenty minutes apart, with Katherine the younger of the twins. They both had ginger hair and green-gray eyes. Anna was more inquisitive, and the one who seems to indulge in risky behaviour. Katherine always was on guard,  They attended Girls' High and Normal School on Sergeant Street where there were classes in algebra and Shakespeare. Anna liked to pass notes to Mary Phelps at the back of the class. Then last April something changed.

Anna had revealed that the boy at the bakery on Walnut likes her. Whenever they came to the bakery, he'd give Anna something extra, sweet rolls or a slice of coconut pie. So that afternoon in April, while their father was at lunch at Union and their mother was hosting a butter sculptor, Anna had decided not to attend her lesson at Miss Louise's School of Elocution. After sending Jeannie Bea to let the school know she asked Katherine to accompany her to Crowell & Granger, then to the tailor as DeWees. Anna states that she has a gift for Bennett, however, Katherine reminds her that her father hopes to marry her to Alan Carver. But Anna is not interested in Alan. At Crowell's, aided by Mrs. Childress, Anna choses material for new dresses for their seventeenth birthday. And afterward, Anna had visited Bennett in the bakery. Katherine realized that night that Anna had fallen in love with Bennett, the baker's boy.

Once again Katherine decides to make another attempt to end her life. With her mother off to yet another meeting at Mrs. Gillespie's, she leaves her home on Delancey and takes the streetcar to the Trans-Continental Hotel. Katherine follows a young girl with a white bird in a cage and ends up at the Operti's Tropical Garden where Guiseppie Operti and his orchestra will be performing that night, and where the girl's father plays the clarinet. The young girl lets her white bird, named Snow out of its guilded cage to fly around the beautiful space that is painted with gorgeous frescoes. Katherine returns home.

On September 9, Katherine finds herself at the Centennial's south gate above the Schuylkill River and wanders through the exhibition until she reaches the west entrance and is exhausted. Katherine remembers the events of last August during the summer before Anna's death in February. Their father announced that they would be vacationing with the Carvers during the third week of August at Cape May. Anna was not happy about this as she wants nothing to do with Alan Carver, the boy her father is set on having her marry. Katherine and Anna quarrelled as Katherine attempted to get her sister to stop lying and to tell their father what's been going on. Anna doesn't do this even as Katherine diverts Alan's attentions by dancing two valses with him.

Still seated at the Centennial Exhibition, Katherine recalls a particular November day. The two sisters had gone out to do shopping errands that morning after breakfast. But they also stop at the bakery where Anna has Katherine stand watch as she goes in and spends time with Bennett. While she is standing by the door, a young man named William stops by wanting to enter the bakery. William peers into the window and he and Katherine see Anna and Bennett kissing. Ashamed and overhearing Anna tell Bennett that she is forever disappointing Katherine, she leaves and goes home alone. It is at this point that Katherine decides to leave Anna to herself: she spends time with someone else at school, she walks  home alone and doesn't speak to her sister for weeks.

But it is the events of New Years Eve that finally make Katherine reach a decision regarding Anna. Katherine decides that she can no longer save Anna. "That night Katherine gave up trying to talk sense into Anna. That night she did not try to argue her twin sister out of her gargantuan joy; she did not try to save her. It was then that Katherine decided to begin to look the other way on purpose, but this time without anger, without the intent to prove a point. She decided to stop protecting Anna, so that she might love her more truly."

It is this decision that Katherine believes makes her responsible for Anna's death. She stopped watching out for Anna. Still intent on ending her life, it is a series of events that September day at the Centennial Exhibition, meeting Bennett, comforting the little girl who has lost her bird Snow, and meeting William that help Katherine face the reality of Anna's accidental death and how living her life is the answer to her unspeakable loss.

Discussion

Dangerous Neighbors is a historical fiction novel about the coming of age of twin sisters set against the backfrop of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadephia. 

The Centennial International Exhibition was held from May 10 to November 10, 1876 in Philadelphia. The exposition was located at the Fairmont Park along the Schuylkill River. Instead of one large building there were five main buildings along with numerous smaller exhibition buildings that featured different nations. Katherine visits the Colosseum, a round building which exhibited a cyclorama entitled "Paris by Night". It was an immersive oil painting that extended from floor to ceiling to create the illusion of being in Paris. The Colusseum building also featured a tower that exposition visitors could climb.

Kephart ably describes the fair and gives modern readers a sense of the setting with the modern up-to-date novelties on display at the fair across the street from Shantytown with its prostitutes and hucksters and the squalor of its wooden shacks. "The wonders of the world slide past. Parisian corsets cavorting on their pedestals. Vases on lacquered shelves. Folding beds. Walls of cutlery. The sweetest assortment of sugar-coated pills, all set to sail on a yacht.....   At the intersection of the main aisle and the central transept is a palace of jewels: Tiffany, Starr & Marcus, Caldwell. ...See these cinnamon colored cameos; this diamond necklace; these perfect solitaires; these black, white, and pink pearls...."

The novel also incorporates the Shanty Town fire that occurred in Philadelphia on September 9, 1876. The fire began in an establishment on Elm Street across from the Centennial International Exhibition. Although Philadelphia had banned the construction of wooden buildings, Elm Street was filled with restaurants and hotels. The fire spread from the Broadway Oyster House to surrounding buildings very quickly.

The novel opens with Katherine attempting to jump from the Colosseum building at the Centennial International Exhibition. Katherine is wracked with guilt over her twin sister Anna's death in February. Anna died in an accident while skating on the Schuylkill River.  Their relationship has been frought with tension and dysfunction.  Although Katherine was the younger of the twins, somehow she had taken on the role of the older, protective twin, always watching out for her more self-absorbed, reckless and impulsive sister. With their parents seemingly disengaged and absorbed in their own lives, it fell to Katherine to be watchful and on guard. She felt responsible for her sister. Katherine was "responsible for interrupting Anna's drift towards the perilous, for fixing the fences and defining the borders, the edges, the ends. Anna listened to Katherine when it was important, because Katherine's talent had never been beauty; it was saving, rescue." 

Unable to save Anna that past February, Katherine is experiencing intense guilt. As she spends time at the Centennial Exhibition Katherine has time to remember the months leading up to the accident. The April prior to her death, Anna had become interested in Bennett, a boy outside her social class who worked at the bakery on Walnut. When Katherine learns of Anna's attachment she warns her that their father has Alan Carver "in mind" for her. And so when they go out on a shopping trip that ends in a stop at the bakery, Katherine goes along "To make sure that nothing unforgiveable happened in the pitch of an adventure."  That night Katherine realizes that "Anna had fallen in love with Benett: Katherine had lost her."  

During their vacation at Cape May, Katherine found herself caught in the middle. Her father suspects something isn't quite right with Anna but Katherine, caught in the middle, feels she cannot reveal her sister's secret. "She wanted to confess the truth and be done with it."And so when they are alone Katherine attempts to point out their father is doing what he believes is best for her, but Anna is having none of it stating that it is all a charade and that  "They've put me on the auction block"  Katherine  reminds Anna that she has been forced to be responsible for Anna and that she should have been honest about what was going on with Bennett. Katherine begs her to tell father about Bennett, stating "But you have to tell Father about Bennett, Anna, and soon. Promise me that. You've turned us both into liars." Katherine tells Anna that she is being unfair to their parents, to Bennett, and to her by putting her in the middle.  Although Katherine feels abandoned by Anna, she loves her sister too much to do the right thing and tell their parents. 

However, after Cape May Anna continues to lie, sneaking out even during the night to see Bennett.This continues throughout the fall and even during New Years celebrations, and finally to the day the two sisters go skating on the Schuylkill River. The circunstances of Anna's death are not revealed until well into the novel. While Katherine is enjoying learning how to spin on ice skates, Anna skates towards the dam and falls through the thin ice, Bennett unable to save her.

After Anna's death, Bennett has been attempting to talk to Katherine for months, even writing letters to her, but she has spurned all his attempts. His concern for Katherine leads Bennett to save her from the first attempt to end her life.  Eventually Katherine and Bennett meet a second time, on September 9th in the Main Exhibition Hall. She accuses Bennett of not saving Anna and of stealing Anna from her. She is referring to the loss of Anna well before she died and their secret Katherine is now forced to keep forever, of Anna and Bennett. He tells her that he could not save Anna and that she is not responsible for her sister's death. Faced with this reality, Katherine's identity is shattered. "For if Katherine isn't needed for anything, if she is no longer responsible for Anna, who is she now? What can she give?" 

As she reflects after Bennett leaves, Katherine realizes that she had to let go of her sister, in order to keep at least some part of Anna's heart. She remembers,  "By October, Katherine understood that she had this choice: either settle her debts with her sister, or lose her altogether. There could be no more fighting about Bennett. No more accusations, either way...She would leave Anna and her lies and her Bennett be, for the return of at least some fraction of Anna's heart."  This was very difficult for Katherine because she has been so enmeshed with watching out for Anna's recklessness. It is why she feels so guilty over her sister's death.

After the fire, when Katherine is searching for William the young man who finds lost animals and whom she has seen before near her home, she comes to the realization that Bennett really tried to save Anna, that he would have gone after her but they wouldn't let him. She knows she must forgive both him and herself. As she's searching to make sure William is safe after helping rescue animals from the Shanty Town fire, Katherine encounters the little girl who is looking for her bird, Snow. When the little girl asks Katherine what will happen if Snow isn't found, Katherine tells her, "Then you will always have Snow in your heart..."  Katherine has stumbled upon the realization that in moments of desolate loss, one needs to go on living. That in living, the memory of Anna will live on too. "Anna in her heart, she thinks. Katherine living, staying alive, so that Anna lives within."

The novel takes its title from a phrase Katherine's father offers during their stay at Cape May. While talking about Anna, Katherine's father tells her that the world is changing and that Anna doesn't understand, "that there are among us dangerous neighbors." Katherine wonders if the baker's son is a "dangerous neighbor".  Later on she twice sees a young man, with "wheat-colored hair" and eyes "...the color of a river at night". The young man is not from her social status: she's seen him capturing a pig in a neighbor's yard and then sees him again outside the bakery. He speaks to Katherine but he has no business speaking to her. "He was from another side of town. He was from another place. Dangerous neighbors, her father has said... Katherine studied him, decided against deciding he was handsome, though he was --- undeniably he was." At the end of the novel, Katherine decides to act on her attraction to William - a man who seems respectful and whom she admires because he rescues things that are lost. 

Although the novel focuses on the emotional turmoil of the surviving twin Katherine, her parents are remote, secondary characters,  a common feature in young adult novels. Katherine and Anna's parents seem self-absorbed and almost completely disengaged from their daughters' lives. There appears to be no repercussions to Anna's rude treatment of Alan Carver and Anna appears to come and go without her parents even remotely aware of her activities. And her visits to the bakery and even kissing Bennett in the store seem unrealistic - one wonders where was the baker?

While Dangerous Neighbors is an intriguing novel, its structure is somewhat confusing. Instead of chapters the novel might have been better divided into Present and Past. The reader doesn't know how Anna died until near the end of the novel, although there are hints that it has to do with the river. Nevertheless, Kephart manages to convey the dysfunctional relationship between the two sisters and the intense guilt and self-reproach that Katherine experiences. Dangerous Neighbors has at it's core themes of loss, guilt, and redemption. Dangerous Neighbors is a good, short read for teens looking for something different.

Book Details:
Dangerous Neighbors by Beth Kephart
New York: Laura Geringer Books, Egmont USA 2010
176 pp.