Der Kaninchenstall

Tess Gunty is the youngest recipient of the National Book Award since Philip Roth and the greatest talent in American literary history since David Foster Wallace. "The Rabbit Hutch" promises such an intense reading experience that one might hesitate to even call it "reading." "Experiencing," "marveling" would be far more appropriate for this masterpiece, and the term "experience" comes to mind. The reading of this novel is at least "life-changing."

The ethereal Blandine, who has developed an obsession with Hildegard of Bingen and seems to have fallen through the cracks of the system, lives just through the thin walls of a shabby apartment complex in a former industrial town in Indiana, separated from her quirky neighbors: a woman who writes obituaries online, a young mother with a dark secret, and someone who is waging a one-man war against rodents. Welcome to the Rabbit Hutch. A novel about the American Rust Belt and its inhabitants, who are by no means all cut from the same cloth, as one might mistakenly assume.

A brutally beautiful and biting comedic snapshot of contemporary America, a charming and provocative story about loneliness and longing, entanglement, and ultimately: freedom.