The Rabbit Hutch: A Novel (National Book Award Winner)

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In addition to unique characters, Gunty’s gift lies in capturing Vacca Vale’s character. The town exudes hopelessness—unemployment and crime are rampant, and it is ranked first on “ Newsweek’s annual list of Top Ten Dying American Cities.” The city once “had a pulse you could feel in Chicago,” but that was when Zorn was booming. Yet Vacca Vale also has a certain cultural vibrancy: home to many who have never lived elsewhere, the city has developed its own patois. There was something about this practice that made otherworldly realms seem material to me, something about the prayer that built a bridge between my city and the afterlife, and I began to feel like the two places were bonded. Even though I was starting to detach from the zealous Catholicism of my youth, I still felt an obligation to say the prayer. Sometimes I’d find myself reciting it almost unconsciously. These are lives lived too close for comfort and too remotely for care, and it’s a model for everyone’s problem in this novel, which is populated by people like the young mother who both seek love and feel it as a terrible imposition on their own psyches. “People are dangerous because they are contagious,” thinks one man. “They infect you with or without your consent.” In the novel, Blandine is precocious — tragically so; it makes her a target. As a kid, Gunty was too; before she could spell she enjoyed drawing and narrating stories to her father, who would transcribe them. Along with Walk the Vanished Earth, Sea of Tranquility and Trashlands, The Rabbit Hutch will likely be one of my favourite novels of 2022.

An astonishing portrait . . . Gunty delves into the stories of Blandine’s neighbors, brilliantly and achingly charting the range of their experiences. . . . It all ties together, achieving this first novelist’s maximalist ambitions and making powerful use of language along the way. Readers will be breathless.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) A] bizarre, enticing story . . . Addictive . . . This is a novel for both the hopeless and hopeful, and though Gunty does not spare us from the violence of humanity, she understands that it does not define us exclusively. As a writer, Gunty is both deft and versatile. Though she may be unknown to most of her readers, The Rabbit Hutchalready feels like something only Tess Gunty could write.” —Mara Sandroff, Newcity Lit

So Gunty certainly has a heart for the American Midwest (much like your humble reviewer, a Minnesota aficionada) and intends to investigate how people deal with gentrification, alienation, and the decline of traditional industries (here, the car company is called Zorn, which, fyi, is the German word for wrath / rage). While books that revolve around the topics mentioned usually operate with social realism and heavy moral implications, this text focuses on playfulness and boldly experiments with aesthetic choices, throwing all kinds of narrative ideas and images at us - I highly respect the drive and daring nature between Gunty's writing. She works with different text forms and uses the isolation between the characters as a stylistic means, and it all builds up to one gigantic extravaganza of over-construction. The Rabbit Hutch is one of those books that you dread having to put down. It couldn't have been harder to do had the Kindle been superglued to my hands.

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. A first novel of uncommon power . . . A character-driven marvel . . . This is fiction that feels completely new while also pulling together dark impulses and base instincts that are familiar to every one of us. Gunty is doing a lot, and it’s all working. The Rabbit Hutchis a singular and piercing story.” —Heather Scott Partington, Alta Anderson, Hephzibah (July 16, 2022). "Tess Gunty: 'I was an almost freakishly devout child' ". the Guardian . Retrieved October 26, 2022. Philosophical, and earthy, and tender and also simply very fun to read—Tess Gunty is a distinctive talent, with a generous and gently brilliant mind.” —Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a WitchThe Rabbit Hutch aches, bleeds, and even scars but it also forgives with laughter, with insight, and finally, through an act of generational independence that remains this novel’s greatest accomplishment, with an act of rescue, rescue of narrative, rescue from ritual, rescue of heart, the rescue of tomorrow.” —Mark Z. Danielewski, author of House of Leaves Its not a plot-driven novel … (somewhat a coming-of-age novel)…but rather it creates an environment that makes us think about ideas. But despite Notre Dame’s existence, countless people were still left behind when the automobile industry closed; not everyone can transition from a job at a factory to one at a private university. Some families didn’t recover for generations. Many are still recovering.