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Title details for The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty - Available

The Rabbit Hutch

A Novel

by Tess Gunty
Tess Gunty
Audiobook
2 of 3 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
2 of 3 copies available
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

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    August 2, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593627990
      • File size: 342149 KB
      • Duration: 11:52:48

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 4, 2022
      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.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Author Tess Gunty and four acclaimed narrators present this unique debut novel set in the La Lapiniere Affordable Housing complex, which is generally called "The Rabbit Hutch." Narrator Suzanne Toren captures the personality of the young resident Blondine, who is obsessed with the writings of female Christian mystics. Scott Brick sounds gentle yet sinister as he portrays the teenage tenants who have just placed out of the foster care system in the chapter called "A Game of Clue." Also worth recognizing are the chapters presented by Kirby Heyborne and Kyla Garcia. All the characters in this striking novel are dysfunctional, yet listeners will care deeply about their fates as they live crammed together in this crumbling apartment building in an Indiana factory town long past its heyday. D.L.G. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      June 10, 2024

      Gunty's debut, which takes place in the crumbling city of Vacca Vale, IN, tells the story of four former foster kids who live in a rundown apartment building known as the Rabbit Hutch. Having aged out of the system, the teens are thrust into a world for which they are inadequately prepared. The main character is Blandine, who dropped out of high school and now spends her days reading philosophy and the writings of mystics such as Hildegarde of Bingen, which provide her with an escape from her bleak life. While Blandine's story is the central focus, each chapter illustrates how the lives of the residents entwine, and how their struggles are both personal and communal. Set against a changing community and world, the novel is hauntingly narrated by a full cast, including the author, who is joined by Scott Brick, Suzanne Toren, Kirby Heyborne, and Kyla Garcia. Their combined voices enhance the novel's dreamlike atmosphere, making listeners question what is real and what is not. VERDICT Both literary and magical, this book will appeal to listeners searching for a beautiful, yet unsettling story that tackles the ways in which systems oppress us. Highly recommended.--Elyssa Everling

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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