The Rabbit Hutch

'Exquisitely written, acutely observed and breathtakingly original. There was not a single page that didn't contain at least one phrase or sentence that I wanted to underline to return to later. Gunty's prose crackles with energy, wit and intent. Reading The Rabbit Hutch is like experiencing a literary hallucination! I loved it!'

'Tess Gunty is a masterful talent with a remarkable eye for the poetic, the poignant and the absurdly sublime. The Rabbit Hutch unspools the story of Blandine Watkins and other inhabitants of a rundown building on the edge of the once bustling Vacca Vale, Indiana. A brutal and beautiful novel that both delights and devastates with its unflinching depiction of Rust Belt decline, Gunty's debut is a tour de force that's sure to top this year's best-of lists.' 

'This breathtaking novel centres around the inhabitants of the Rabbit Hutch, a run-down apartment building at the edge of a dying city. Each of the inhabitants have their own challenges, but the four teenagers living there together are especially poised on the brink. Your allegiances will shift and shift again as the plot writhes toward a shocking, but inevitable, conclusion.'

'Remarkable... Brilliantly imaginative... Gunty is a wonderful writer, a master of the artful phrase... Best of all, her fully realized characters come alive on the page, capturing the reader and not letting go.'

'A stunning and original debut that is as smart as it is entertaining... With sharp prose and startling imagery, the novel touches on subjects from environmental trauma to rampant consumerism to sexual power dynamics to mysticism to mental illness, all with an astonishing wisdom and imaginativeness.'

'Gunty writes with such compassion for her characters as they build their lives and assert their agency in a country that utterly disregards them, and in particular Blandine's bright, fierce curiosity for the world kept me moving through the story; she's a warrior, an intellectual force, a young woman who refuses to be disempowered. This is a skillfully told, beautiful, human story.'

'Gunty debuts with an astonishing portrait of economically depressed Vacca Vale, Indiana, centered on the residents of a subsidized apartment building nicknamed the Rabbit Hutch... Readers will be breathless.' 

'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.'

'As surreal as it is genius… Spanning one week, the novel culminates in a shocking and violent climax that will stay with your long after you turn the last page.'

'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 Hutch is a singular and piercing story.'

'Tess Gunty [has an] evocative way with words... Gunty treats The Rabbit Hutch like a wall of glass cages at a pet store and we readers are voyeuristic shoppers peering in...  If you scratch away the layers of surrealism and satire, you find Gunty's practical insight into the meaning of life. It's complicated, hard as hell, and yet beautiful. At its core, The Rabbit Hutch asks us to question what it means to be alive, especially in the age of the internet.'

'The Rabbit Hutch is an immersive story that is simultaneously disquieting, thrilling, and deeply moving.'