suburban life

Rebecca the skunk had been successful in eluding all of the homeowners' attempts to evict her from under the deck; but when they threw mothballs into her nest, she decided it was time to go.

Kate Connor struggles to balance her work as a demon hunter with the ordinary demands of marriage and motherhood, as her daughter dreams of following in Kate's footsteps, her dead husband steals another human's body, and her living husband shifts into political overdrive.

A sheltered fifteen-year-old girl named Mary Fred Anderson is removed from her home in a fundamentalist sect and placed in foster care in a Washington, D.C. suburb, where a violent act upon her new family has an indelible impact on her, making her reexamine her long-held beliefs.

The residents of Poplar Street find themselves in the grip of surreal terror when violence erupts in the suburban town of Wentworth, Ohio, beginning with the murder of the paper boy.

A group of friends who are all named Jane get together and try to make their small town beautiful by engaging in subversive art, and the main Jane wrestles with her affection for two different boys on Valentine's Day while she runs out of money for continuing her artwork.

After a bombing in the city, Jane's parents move to a suburb where she befriends three outcasts--all named Jane--and starts a group called People Loving Art in Neighborhoods, which tries to enrich their community with art but instead is viewed as a threat.

Describes the creation and history of "sundown towns, " American towns where African-Americans were outlawed after dark, in some cases as late as the 1970s; examines their effect on whites, African-Americans, and the social system; and discusses their continued existence, arguing the importance of integration.