As the book unfolds with bantering ease, in a neighborly Mojave Desert town called Pico Mundo, Thomas simply takes for granted a familiarity with phenomena "otherly and beyond".
The bash felt like a neighborly small-town festival, to the extent that an event brought to you by AT&T, SBC Communications and Verizon -- to mention only the phone companies chipping in -- can manage to feel neighborly.
Indeed, Avalon's neighborly small-town atmosphere -- like a Mayberry by the sea -- is what has drawn generations of families to this century-old resort on the southern Jersey Shore.
Similarly, the nearby offices of companies like Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch and Bristol-Myers Squibb employ some of the newer residents, who have discovered this neighborly, more affordable town.
Pecos — the county seat of Reeves County, with a 2017 population of about 9,000 — used to feel like a neighborly and intimate town, but Seals said she doesn't even know exactly how many people are living there these days.
There, libertarianism roots, a small-town, neighborly approach to government and the honest belief that "everybody knows everybody" has overridden any perceived need for strong protections in law.
The third, just released, is "Promised Land," the new Hollywood movie starring Matt Damon, It is in part about fracking, and as the subtext, it is about the invasion of neighborly, citizenly small-town American life by unaccountable corporations.
The Warrenites, in their mono-colored, Little House on the Prairie outfits, don't mix much, but are nevertheless a visible, and mostly neighborly, presence in the town.
As a result, he has an enduring fondness for the unaffected pleasures of small-town life: neighborly people, uncomplicated food and fair prices.
