Suzanne Berne

Suzanne Berne is an American novelist known for her foreboding character studies involving unexpected crimes and violence in bucolic suburban settings. Her debut novel, A Crime in the Neighborhood, published in 1997 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, won Great Britain's prestigious Orange Prize. Told through the eyes of a ten-year-old girl, the book chronicles a child's murder in a sleepy suburb of Washington, D.C. against the backdrop of the unfolding Watergate scandal. Her second novel, A Perfect Arrangement, published in 2001 by Algonquin Books, tells of a seemingly perfect nanny who comes to terrorize a dysfunctional suburban family.

Berne was born in Washington, D.C., attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. She presently lives near Boston and has taught at both Harvard University and Wellesley College.