It’s the summer of 2017 in Wellington Beach, California, a suburban coastal town increasingly divided by politics, protests, and escalating housing prices—divisions that change the lives of five neighbors.
Each character confronts death, betrayal, financial decline, and loneliness as they search for home and community in a neighborhood where no one can agree who belongs.
Real estate agent Lisa Kensington juggles her job, her shopaholic husband, a mother who knows how to push her buttons, and teenagers with ideas of their own. Ray Gorman, a haunted Vietnam vet, lives with and cares for his aging mother. Keith Nelson, an ex-con, lives in his car, parked near his parents’ house. Sixteen-year-old Josh Kowalski works through the shock of his father’s abandonment by slamming on a drum set. Jeannette Larsen, an aerobics teacher numbed by horrific tragedy, turns away from her husband and toward reckless behavior.
In the end, they all discover that despite their differences, they are more connected than any of them would have imagined.
Industry Reviews
2024 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards Silver Winner in Fiction: General
2023 American Writing Awards Finalist in Fiction: General
2023 American Fiction Awards Finalist in General Fiction
2023 Hawthorne Prize Shortlist
"Mary Camarillo's fictional beach town comes to vivid life with her intricate plotting and the southern California she knows as intimately as every back yard and sidewalk and kitchen her characters inhabit here, in this right-now novel. Her dark humor glows amid the streets of this coastal place."
-Susan Straight, author of Mecca
“Those People Behind Us is set in a politically charged time and place, but the citizens of the place - flawed, conflicted, mortal—reminded me of the citizens of another time and place, the characters of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. Both sets of characters are equally bound together by time and place and the loneliness that is at the center of so many American lives. . . . They share your flaws, your sins, your secrets, your mortality. Camarillo has created what is by now a rarity, fully rounded characters that invoke what Flannery O’Connor called ‘the mystery of personality.’ These characters will stay with you long after you’ve finished the book. Like a Wellington Beach sunburn or some grains of sand in an oyster.”
—Lou Matthews, author of Shaky Town and LA Breakdown
“ . . . . we all need to step back from our prejudices and assumptions, take a deep breath, and realize that we are all in this together . . . . mesmerizing . . . . A worthwhile read with characters who grapple with timely political conundrums.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“The stakes are high and the ground unstable in the fictional town of Wellington Beach where even a real estate agent’s seemingly innocuous pamphlets are loaded with undercurrents of significance and menace. Yet Camarillo’s novel offers hope, and, because of her facility with characters, I found myself unabashedly rooting for the fallible and suffering Wellington community.”
—Victoria Patterson, author of The Secret Habit of Sorrow and The Little Brother
“Camarillo has crafted another winner! Those People Behind Us is a beautiful, propulsive masterwork of empathy.”
—J. Ryan Stradal, author of New York Times bestseller Kitchens of the Great Midwest
“A gripping read that captures the pettiness, complexity, and surprising tenderness of living in a suburban environment.”
—Sara Flannery Murphy, author of Girl One and The Wonder State
“Fans of Liane Moriarty will savor the raw suspense and mystery Camarillo has skillfully woven. Juxtaposed against the bright and sunny Southern California sky, this multigenerational tale takes a deep dive into the minds and motivations of a seemingly harmless neighborhood as it strips back each dark and complicated layer, piece by piece.”
—Suzanne Simonetti, USA Today best-selling author of The Sound of Wings
“Thoughtful and riveting. In Those People Behind Us, Mary Camarillo trains an astute yet empathetic eye on the residents of one Southern California planned community in the year 2017, dissecting the mental and emotional cracks in our foundation at the brink of the Trump era.”
—Shelley Blanton-Stroud, author of Copy Boy and TomBoy
“Peyton Place with a twist of Trump.”
—Eduardo Santiago, author of Tomorrow They Will Kiss and Midnight Rhumba
“A fascinating and perceptive read about growth, acceptance, and understanding people different than yourself.”
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