The Burrow
A literary gem from the Miles Franklin longlisted author of Room for a Stranger
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Amy, Jin and Lucie are leading isolated lives in their partially renovated, inner city home. They are not happy, but they are also terrified of change. When they buy a pet rabbit for Lucie, and then Amy's mother, Pauline, comes to stay, the family is forced to confront long-buried secrets. Will opening their hearts to the rabbit help them to heal or only invite further tragedy?
The Burrow tells an unforgettable story about grief and hope. With her characteristic compassion and eye for detail, Melanie Cheng reveals the lives of others—even of a small rabbit.
Melanie Cheng is a writer and general practitioner. She was born in Adelaide, grew up in Hong Kong and now lives in Melbourne. Her debut collection of short stories, Australia Day, won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2016 and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction in 2018. Room for a Stranger, her highly acclaimed first novel, was published in 2019.
‘How rare, this delicacy—this calm, sweet, desolated wisdom.’ Helen Garner
‘Melanie Cheng’s The Burrow is stupendously good. This is a novel that deals with the crucial elements of our lives – love and family and grief and guilt and responsibility – and does so without a whiff of sentimentality and does so fearlessly. As in real life, the characters keep surprising us. The power of The Burrow is in the unflinching yet empathetic command of the novelist, in the candid beauty of the language. It’s a remarkable work, nuanced and human and adult.’ Christos Tsiolkas
‘Such a fan of Melanie Cheng’s work. Quiet writing with such fierce emotion. This one’s another gift of a novel.’ Benjamin Law
‘Gulped it. I’ve been a Melanie Cheng fan since our first books came out. But this one is next level—it conveys so much human experience so sparingly that it seems to defy the laws of gravity. Stunning.’ Sarah Krasnostein
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A Melbourne family struggles to move on four years after their baby's death in the penetrating latest from Cheng (Room for a Stranger). Hoping to lighten the mood for their 10-year-old daughter, Lucie, Jin and Amy Lee get her a pet rabbit. Initially, the rabbit proves a welcome distraction, but then Amy's estranged mother, Pauline, arrives after breaking her wrist, and the family's tenuous harmony is undermined. Through flashbacks, Cheng hints at the circumstances of the baby's death at six months, suggesting that Pauline bore some responsibility. Meanwhile, Pauline is struck by the family's stagnation: the backyard is riddled with detritus from a partially completed home improvement project, and Amy seems to be incapable of providing the necessary emotional support to sensitive Lucie. To make matters worse, the Covid-19 pandemic keeps everyone but Jin, an ER doctor, housebound. Eventually, each character's bond with the rabbit proves restorative, and a crisis point involving a break-in nudges them further along the path toward recovery. Cheng shrewdly portrays the impact of the tragedy on each family member. Readers will be moved.
