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A review by lrb0135
The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty
challenging
dark
funny
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
The Rabbit Hutch is one hell of a debut.
You can tell Gunty's process involved writing separate character studies, stories, and vignettes that she eventually strung together in this book, but they mirror the compartmentalization of the apartments and lives of the denizens in the rabbit hutch, who are close together, but isolated from one another.
I took this book to be about how isolation desensitizes us to acts of violence; we need community and dialog to make us mindful of our actions' effects on others. The people of Vacca Vale are in favor of leveling their natural public park for apartments and strip malls; the old lady wants her husband to place a dead rat at the front door of the apartment below; the foster boys kill small animals to find meaning in their lives; Hildegard and other mystics in self-imposed isolation write about the glory of being stabbed by an angel of the Lord; Moses does his glowstick nonsense after estranging himself from his mother; a mother cannot look her baby in the eyes--she tells no one; a lone mother rabbit, left to her own devices will eat her young.
Vacca Vale raises the broader question of what, if anything, can we extrapolate from the central conceit of The Rabbit Hutch to help us better understand the current state of American politics?
I look forward to following Gunty's career. The only reason I didn't rate this a full 5 stars is because there's a graphic portion of the novel at the denouement that left me feeling cheated of Gunty-style poetic chaos-prose, but I'm open to someone changing my mind if they have a compelling argument for it. I'm a tad biased against pictures in my books. 🤷♀️
You can tell Gunty's process involved writing separate character studies, stories, and vignettes that she eventually strung together in this book, but they mirror the compartmentalization of the apartments and lives of the denizens in the rabbit hutch, who are close together, but isolated from one another.
I took this book to be about how isolation desensitizes us to acts of violence; we need community and dialog to make us mindful of our actions' effects on others. The people of Vacca Vale are in favor of leveling their natural public park for apartments and strip malls; the old lady wants her husband to place a dead rat at the front door of the apartment below; the foster boys kill small animals to find meaning in their lives; Hildegard and other mystics in self-imposed isolation write about the glory of being stabbed by an angel of the Lord; Moses does his glowstick nonsense after estranging himself from his mother; a mother cannot look her baby in the eyes--she tells no one; a lone mother rabbit, left to her own devices will eat her young.
Vacca Vale raises the broader question of what, if anything, can we extrapolate from the central conceit of The Rabbit Hutch to help us better understand the current state of American politics?
I look forward to following Gunty's career. The only reason I didn't rate this a full 5 stars is because there's a graphic portion of the novel at the denouement that left me feeling cheated of Gunty-style poetic chaos-prose, but I'm open to someone changing my mind if they have a compelling argument for it. I'm a tad biased against pictures in my books. 🤷♀️