The Rabbit Hutch

A Novel

By: Tess Gunty

Narrated by: Tess Gunty, Scott Brick, Suzanne Toren, Kirby Heyborne, Kyla Garcia

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

©2022 Tess Gunty (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • A NEW YORKER ESSENTIAL READ • A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, TIME, NPR, Oprah Daily, Literary Hub, Kirkus • A People Top 10 Book of The Year • A Bookpage Top 10 Book of the Year

2022, National Book Award, Winner

2022, National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, Short-listed

2023, Mark Twain Award, Short-listed

“The most promising first novel I’ve read this year . . . A feeling of genuine crisis . . . propels the narrative through its many twists to the catharsis of its bizarre ending.”—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

“Ambitious . . . Despite offering a dissection of contemporary urban blight, the novel doesn’t let social concerns crowd out the individuality of its characters, and Blandine’s off-kilter brilliance is central to the achievement.”—The New Yorker

“Mesmerizing . . . A novel of impressive scope and specificity . . . One of the pleasures of the narrative is the way it luxuriates in language, all the rhythms and repetitions and seashell whorls of meaning to be extracted from the dull casings of everyday life. . . . [Gunty] also has a way of pressing her thumb on the frailty and absurdity of being a person in the world; all the soft, secret needs and strange intimacies. The book’s best sentences—and there are heaps to choose from—ping with that recognition, even in the ordinary details.”—Leah Greenblatt, The New York Times Book Review

A book of feelings

There is tangible sense of the everyday trauma of life shared by the residents of the Rabbit Hutch. Gunty’s writing communicates the lack of control the characters experience over their own lives. For the audio book, initially I felt that the reading sounded flat, but then realize that the tone matches the apathy that the characters experience.

There were some moments where the story may have dragged, but I appreciate how those characters fit into the big picture.

Finally, inspired by Elsie, I need to start keeping an excruciatingly long list of my likes and dislikes. It was fun to hear.

Interesting story

Not bad but it never feels like it gets off the ground. Still would recommend due to the interesting plot.

This is a Fantastic Book, I highly recommend!

This book is so well written that the way it sits with you, you kind of can't remember how you know these people and events. Did they happen to you? Did a friend or family member tell you this story who experienced this first hand? Or did you dream it? It really is an experience, and that I believe is the highest achievement for any media. Yes as some have complained it's kind of heavy at times but honestly if you haven't lived a sheltered life I think you'll enjoy it. I think this is the best book I've read/listened to in the past decade.

Delightful debut

Tess Gunty was my writing tutor at Notre Dame, so I was excited to pick up her novel once I learned about it. I could easily feel her thoughtfulness and talent throughout. Looking forward to following her career and eagerly awaiting her next publication.

Very interesting plot

I really liked the multitude of characters. I wish there had been a little more hopefulness in the novel.

an engaging thought experiment

I loved the perspectives and how she highlighted our individual weirdness. I did feel the graphic sex scenes were unnecessary but the story itself was fantastic.

was not my favorite

I did not hate the book but was not my favorite. I wish it spoke more of the struggles of young adults coming out of foster care

Redemptive power of “the rabbit hutch”

Tess Gunty’s ”The Rabbit Hutch” is hailed as a successful first novel and yet it does not read like the beginning of a writer’s career. From the first lines the reader is called to attention: like all important texts, this one requires that every word be given its due, since the intensity of the act of writing never loosens its mesmerizing grip. There is the unusual, at times malefic, suspense in the plot, and then, there is the uncommon perfection, the heights upon which the narration elevates its reader. I am not usually partial to authors reading their own work, but here Tess Gunty, one of the four interpreters, renders her text with sharp intelligence and the affectionate justice it deserves. As if she recognized this to be a work of art greater than herself, its writer and reader. Indeed, against the backdrop of so much pseudo-biographical hubris having taken over contemporary literary production, inevitably chocked by the doomsday scenario where the death of literary creativity is thought to derive from the uselessness of the English major, this powerful denier of doom comes to assert a fact long known and nowadays ignored. That art can and should change people’s minds, and heal the world. That it can act upon the despair of the human condition, just as Hildegard von Bingen’s music did, these many centuries ago. The mystic’s words have never found a more fruitful resonance as they do here, at the heart of today’s sorrows, impotence and grief. As if Tess Gunty were, by means of her magic characters, the incarnation of the mystic; as if her thought, her written work, and her wish for redemption, were the accomplishment of centuries old hope.

Haunting. Mesmerizing.

The writing is clean and taut. Some beautiful alliteration and word pictures.
Story is haunting and mesmerizing, and horrifying but sadly “real.”

Enjoyable Book

I’d love to know what happens to Blandine - the story has room for sequel. It’s an interesting story.