A Perfectly Good Family by Lionel Shriver Page A

dead.

      'The American South,' I observed, pretentiously like my father, 'it's the only place I know that revels in defeat. Most countries, after suffering ignominy, try to put it behind them.'
      'Did you ever notice,' said Truman, 'that Father's attitude towards the Civil War was a little weird?'
      'Weird? It made him mad.'
      'But he wouldn't work himself into an abolitionist lather. He was mad at Sherman. Like everyone else.'
      True, and I treasured the inconsistency.
      We tripped out the south cemetery gate and threaded through the margins of Oakwood, where big black mamas still darned socks on splintered porches. The central part of the neighbourhood had gentrified, and now contained the highest concentration of Ph.Ds in the city limits. It was thanks to the Eighties boom that Heck-Andrews had multiplied into a staggeringly far-sighted investment, for this had not always been an upscale locale.
      Oh, it started that way, though these tattier homes we strolled past now had been built for the Negro cooks and housekeepers who toiled in the Big Houses, like ours. Yet little by little the help didn't remember their place and encroached on Oakwood proper, and in their wake many white owners fled.
    downtown, and these creaky anachronisms were considered fusty. As remaining whites upgraded to suburban duplexes and bungalows, the real estate market in Oakwood crashed completely. Many houses were boarded, some condemned, all were in wretched disrepair. (Truman can tell this story with far more pathos than I.) By the time my parents were shopping for a house in 1963, this neighbourhood was considered a dangerous jungle-bunny slum.
      Which explains why they bought here. My mother couldn't resist a bargain—an entire mansion and outbuildings for $29,000. My father was taken by the concept of inverse integration—in those days, progressive whites would move into areas on the cusp of turning all-black in order to rescue the investments of Negro home-owners. For once architecture was imbued with moral qualities, though my father's highminded romance with his new house was short-lived.
      Because if Truman is to be believed, Heck-Andrews took an immediate dislike to Sturges McCrea. I grant there was something almost deliberate about the way roof slates would slide off right when her owner was leaving the porch. When my father shut a window, putty showered over his new worsted. When my father closed a door, the knob fell off. When my father tightened a spigot, the washer crumbled and cold water spat straight in his eye.
      Truman and I took our usual detour past the Moser house, in front of which we remained for a moment in an attitude of prayerful respect. Though not nearly as grand as ours, the Moser house had been designed by the same architect, G. S. H. Appleget, in 1872.
      'So is the beltway dead for keeps?' I asked.
      'I think so,' Truman said warily. 'But it doesn't hurt to stay vigilant. If they ever shoot Son of Beltway, I'll be on hand for the lead.'

    In 1972, when Truman was twelve and I sixteen, the city of Raleigh proposed to put a highway right through the middle of Oakwood. The capital was already growing fast, without any major artery to shift workers in and out of downtown. I'll never forget Truman's panic when he collected the Raleigh Times from our postbox. He ran to the kitchen and spread the scandalous headline on the table in angry tears. My father read over his shoulder with ill-disguised optimism that maybe the city would

    tar four lanes through our foyer and spare him those odious DIY weekends.
      Though Mordecai and I were politicized early, coming of age in the Sixties, in 1972 Truman's enthusiasms ran to Sting-Ray bikes and Ugly Stickers; Banana Splits Club membership cards were taped to his bedroom door. The beltway changed that. Down came the Banana Splits Club, up went BAN THE BELTWAY bumper stickers and SAVE OUR OAKWOOD posters. The campaign to stop the highway's