The Rabbit Hutch

Published:22 Jun 2023

Winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction PrizeWinner of the National Book Award for Fiction 2022A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle AwardA Waterstones Book of the Year for 2022Winner of the Barnes & Noble Discover PrizeAn Oprah Daily Book of the Year, 2022 ‘Inventive, heartbreaking and acutely funny’ ObserverVacca Vale, Indiana: recently voted number 1 on Newsweek’s list of dying American cities. According to the developers, however, it’s a city with a whole history of reinvention, one that ‘buzzes with the American spirit.’Not everyone agrees though – certainly not the residents of the Rabbit Hutch, a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial centre, populated by a cast of unforgettable, disenfranchised characters. There’s an online obituary writer, a woman waging a solo campaign against rodents and, most notably, eighteen-year-old Blandine, recently released from foster care and determined to stop the developers whatever the cost.

Set over one sweltering week in July, The Rabbit Hutch is a savagely beautiful and bitingly funny snapshot of contemporary America. Bold, experimental and brilliantly written, it will live in the memory long after the final page. ‘The Rabbit Hutch is 2022’s The Secret History’ The Big Issue