The Rabbit Hutch
A Novel (National Book Award Winner)
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3.5 • 243 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • The standout literary debut that everyone is talking about • "Inventive, heartbreaking and acutely funny."—The Guardian
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, TIME, NPR, Oprah Daily, People
Blandine isn't like the other residents of her building.
An online obituary writer. A young mother with a dark secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents — neighbors, separated only by the thin walls of a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial center of Vacca Vale, Indiana.
Welcome to the Rabbit Hutch.
Ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent, Blandine shares her apartment with three teenage boys she neither likes nor understands, all, like her, now aged out of the state foster care system that has repeatedly failed them, all searching for meaning in their lives.
Set over one sweltering week in July and culminating in a bizarre act of violence that finally changes everything, The Rabbit Hutch is a savagely beautiful and bitingly funny snapshot of contemporary America, a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and longing, entrapment and, ultimately, freedom.
"Gunty writes with a keen, sensitive eye about all manner of intimacies―the kind we build with other people, and the kind we cultivate around ourselves and our tenuous, private aspirations."—Raven Leilani, author of Luster
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A young woman’s personal struggles help bring her impoverished community together in this poignant debut novel. Blandine Watkins is more interested in the lives of medieval mystics than her own tragic past. But when the traumatized orphan moves into the affordable-housing complex known as the Rabbit Hutch, an act of violence unites her hard-luck neighbors around her in a beautiful and mysterious way. Tess Gunty weaves a stunning and complex tapestry that centers Blandine and her depressed—and at times a bit bizarre—community, bringing in everything from a beloved television star to the writings of the 12th-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen. Poor Blandine has her own reasons for seeking enlightenment, but in Gunty’s assured hands, her faith—and the faith of those who care for her—is rewarded. Both realistically gritty and gorgeously transcendent, The Rabbit Hutch is a contemporary fable full of magic and love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gunty debuts with an astonishing portrait of economically depressed Vacca Vale, Ind., centered on the residents of a subsidized apartment building nicknamed the Rabbit Hutch. The main character is 18-year-old Blandine Watkins, who grew up in foster care and dropped out of high school in junior year. In the opening scene, she is stabbed in her apartment by an unidentified assailant. Gradually, the causes of the crime emerge, followed eventually by the facts, as well as her fate. Along the way, Gunty delves into the stories of Blandine's neighbors, brilliantly and achingly charting the range of their experiences. An erotic flashback of an infant's conception at a motel on higher ground in Vacca Vale called the Wooden Lady ("It's like if manslaughter were a place," one reviewer describes it), where married couple Hope and Anthony hole up during a "1,000-year flood," contrasts with a devastatingly banal and ultimately traumatic sexual encounter between Blandine and her drama teacher the year before. There's also a lonely woman who lives in a state of "flammable peace" due to her sensitivity to noise, with whom Blandine shares her fascination with Catholic mystics before going off to sabotage a celebration involving the city's gentrification scheme with voodoo dolls and fake blood. It all ties together, achieving this first novelist's maximalist ambitions and making powerful use of language along the way. Readers will be breathless.
Customer Reviews
Not my cup of tea
I forced myself to finish, and by mid book I was struggling to fully immerse myself in the characters. The writing was interesting at parts, but felt disjointed and hard to follow. Perhaps that was the author’s intent but IMO it made for a disappointing read.
Save your money
This jumped all over the place, and never really made much sense. I forced myself to finish it, in hopes it would improve. It didn’t.
This book really moved me
A brilliant book about humanity and its ailments.