The Rabbit Club
A Novel
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- 99,00 kr
Publisher Description
*A People Best Book of July!*
*A New York Post Best Beach Read!*
*A Free Press Summer Read!*
The author of Black Chalk, "the smart summer thriller you've been waiting for" (NPR), returns with a mesmerizing new novel about a dangerous secret society at Oxford University, and the first-year Literature student whose life begins to unravel in its shadow
When Ali McCain, an eighteen-year-old from Los Angeles, is accepted at Oxford, it’s a chance to fulfill his dreams. To study English literature in England; to meet true intellectuals; and to glimpse the life he might have lived had his father—British rock star Gel McCain, legendary frontman of the Pale Fires—not abandoned him and his mother when he was a toddler.
But not long after he arrives at the storied campus, Ali is drawn into a dark, disorienting world where events grow more and more curious by the day. Trading on his father’s name, he gains entry into one of Oxford’s oldest and most selective secret societies, the Saracens. As he immerses himself in this rarefied world, he inadvertently sets in motion a series of events that might culminate in disaster.
A mind-bending literary house of mirrors, replete with bookish allusions and Easter eggs ranging from Brideshead Revisited to King Lear, The Rabbit Club is an arresting work of dark academia by the category’s finest writer.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A wide-eyed American stumbles into the dark secrets of an Oxford secret society in this Easter egg–filled academic thriller. For Ali McCain, an innocent 18-year-old from Los Angeles, Oxford not only promises to fulfil a lifelong dream of studying literature, it offers entry into another world. But when he uses his absent rock star father’s fame to get into the secretive Saracens society, he discovers that his dream also has a dark side. Christopher J. Yates packs this sharp and witty thriller with clever allusions to both great English literature and the pop world of Ali’s father, Gel. Alternating between the two generations’ timelines, he expertly crafts a tantalizing world that both entices and entraps Ali with its intellect, riches, and privilege. Convincingly voiced by a cast of narrators, this smart and suspenseful thriller lured us into every compelling, ivy-covered twist and turn.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Yates revisits the stiff-collared and secretive Oxford University setting of Black Chalk in his tantalizing latest, which chronicles a student's discovery of nefarious deeds there in the mid-1990s. Alistair "Ali" McCain, 18, is the illegitimate son of renowned British rocker Gel McCain, who abandoned him as an infant. After returning to his birth country from California, Ali yearns to join the Saracens, a notorious secret society of upper-crust students. His feminist classmate, Izzy, a love interest, receives an invitation to the society's annual first-week ball. Ali hopes she'll bring him along, but she explains why she plans to decline: "Let's just say I probably haven't been invited because the rich boys of Oxford are interested in my views on gender and sexuality." Eventually, Ali drops his father's name to one of the Saracens and is invited to join their membership trials. But his realized dream quickly turns into a nightmare, as he comes to suspect that a professor's mysterious death is linked to the group. Yates effectively builds suspense as Ali and Izzy face increasing danger, and a subplot involving Ali's father's reappearance adds depth. Dark academia fans ought to snatch this up.
