Book Review: The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

 My Rating: 3.5⭐

Set in the fictional Midwestern town of Vacca Vale, Indiana, The Rabbit Hutch revolves around the residents of a run-down apartment building, once ambitiously bestowed the French name, La Lapinière Affordable Housing Complex, by the philanthropist who funded its development. But now after the Zorn Automobile factories are long gone, the city is one of boarded storefronts and abandoned buildings- one of the many “dying cities” in America, the apartment building is more commonly referred to by its English translation “The Rabbit Hutch”.

The story begins with what we can make out is an act of violence being committed in apartment C4. The narrative takes us through the preceding week and the events in the days leading up to that fateful night. The story predominantly centers around eighteen-year-old Blandine Watkins, recently aged out of the foster care system, a high school dropout and employed in a local diner, presently sharing apartment C4 with three young men, all of whom were once in the foster care system. Blandine once had a promising academic record and was expected to attend college on scholarship but dropped out of high school after an inappropriate relationship with a teacher shattered her already fragile sense of self-worth. She is fascinated with the lives of Christian female mystics, hoping to someday enjoy the experience of Transverberation of the Heart as described by the mystics she frequently reads about. Blandine has not had an easy life and it seems that she is caught up in a vicious cycle of despair and disappointment and her fixation with the lives of the mystics seems not only to be cathartic for her but also lends her a purpose in life. She loves her hometown despite its current state of economic decline and actively opposes the modernization initiatives proposed by local developers.

Other residents of the building include a new mother who is having difficulty adjusting to her new role and finds comfort in watching reruns of an old sitcom, an elderly couple who carry on with their regular squabbles, television and cigarettes, an aspiring influencer, a man who spends time on dating sites frequently checking on the ratings he has been given by women he has met and a woman who works for an online obituary portal and is the target of the wrath of a fifty-three-year-old man whose negative comments on his celebrity mother’s obituary were deleted by her, following company norms. We move back and forth between past and present, exploring the backstories of some of the characters, while others play a blink-and-miss role in the bigger picture.

While I was enthralled by parts of the novel, I found the digressions a bit distracting and inconsequential for the most part and the uneven treatment of the characters ( in terms of how well fleshed out the secondary characters are ) was a tad disappointing. While I admired the depth in the writing in certain parts of the novel, I felt that a few critical themes were explored superficially. More importantly, though I did feel sympathy for Blandine, I found it hard to connect with the overarching narrative or with the characters. This is an intriguing novel - one that is hard to describe in a review and that needs to be read with time and patience. The author touches upon many important themes – vulnerability, loneliness, mental health, community, family and faith among others. The dark and depressing tones in this novel are balanced by moments of wisdom and humor. The illustrations featured in this novel (done by the author’s brother, Nicholas Gunty) are worth special mention as they complement the text very well. Overall, I believe that Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch is an ambitious debut that many will find more appealing than I did. Tess Gunty is a talented writer. I look forward to more from this author in the future.