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." "Living through," "marveling at" would be far more appropriate for this masterpiece, and the word "experience" comes to mind. It is at least "life-changing," this reading of the novel. The ethereal Blandine, who has developed an obsession with Hildegard of Bingen and seems to have fallen through the cracks of the system, is separated by only thin walls from her quirky neighbors in a shabby apartment complex in a former industrial town in Indiana: 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 residents, who cannot all be lumped together as one might mistakenly assume. A brutally beautiful and biting comedic snapshot of contemporary America, a captivating and provocative story about loneliness and longing, entanglement, and ultimately: freedom.