The Rabbit Hutch
by

The Rabbit Hutch

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 21 seconds

My sixtieth book this year, The Rabbit Hutch, was a page-turner that I highly recommend. The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty is a debut novel that won the 2022 National Book Award for fiction. It is a novel about four teenagers—recently aged out of the state foster-care system—living together in an apartment building in the post-industrial Midwest, exploring the quest for transcendence and the desire for love.

As Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, “love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

Ms. Gunty’s book focuses on that ultimate and higher goal. If you can read only one book this year, I recommend The Rabbit Hutch!

“This week is the ceremony for the National Book Award, and one of the finalists is Tess Gunty, whose debut novel, The Rabbit Hutch, is a finalist in the fiction category,” said Kerry Nolan as she spoke with Ms. Gunty.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

The automobile industry has abandoned Vacca Vale, Indiana, leaving the residents behind, too. In a run-down apartment building on the edge of town, commonly known as the Rabbit Hutch, several people now reside quietly, looking for ways to live in a dying city. Apartment C2 is lonely and detached. C6 is aging and stuck. C8 harbors a great fear. But C4 is of particular interest.

Here live four teenagers who have recently aged out of the state foster-care system: three boys and one girl, Blandine, who The Rabbit Hutch centers around. Hauntingly beautiful and unnervingly bright, Blandine is plagued by the structures, people, and places that not only failed her but actively harmed her. Now all Blandine wants is an escape, a true bodily escape like the mystics describe in the books she reads.

Set across one week and culminating in a shocking act of violence, The Rabbit Hutch chronicles a town on the brink, desperate for rebirth. How far will its residents—especially Blandine—go to achieve it? Does one person’s gain always come at another’s expense? Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch is a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and community, entrapment and freedom. It announces a major new voice in American fiction, one bristling with intelligence and vulnerability.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Tom Lake

Read: August 2023

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Tom Lake: A Novel

by Ann Patchett

Today, I began reading Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. The novel beautifully explores family, love, and growing up. Patchett once again proves herself as one of America’s finest writers. Both hopeful and mournful, it explores happiness even when the world falls apart.

The story follows Lara’s three daughters, who return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan in the spring of 2020. While picking cherries, they ask their mother about Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she had a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake.

As Lara reminisces, her daughters are confronted with their own lives and relationships with their mothers, leading them to reevaluate everything they thought they knew. With its hopeful and mournful tone, the novel is a testament to the transformative power of understanding what happiness truly means, even amid chaos. Patchett’s compelling narrative artistry and profound insights into family dynamics weave a rich and luminous story, showcasing why she is one of our time’s most revered and acclaimed literary talents.

I have also read Patchett’s Bel Canto, a compelling tale that explores themes of strength, vulnerability, love, and confinement. It ultimately tells an inspiring story of transcendent romance.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Chain Gang All Stars

Read: December 2023

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Chain Gang All Stars

by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Today, I started reading “Chain Gang All Stars” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. The story revolves around Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker, the main characters of the Chain-Gang All-Stars, a highly controversial and top-rated program in America’s private prison industry. The program is called Criminal Action Penal Entertainment (CAPE), where prisoners compete for the ultimate prize- their freedom. It’s similar to the return of the gladiators but in a modern-day setting.

The story is set in a prison called CAPE, where inmates are forced to participate in death matches as a part of a chain-gang. These matches are held in front of cheering crowds, while the prison authorities claim it to be a righteous act. Among the participants, Thurwar and Staxxx are the most popular as they are also lovers. Thurwar is just a few matches away from her freedom, which she carries with a heavy heart and lethal hammer. Thurwar contemplates how she can help her fellow inmates preserve their humanity despite being forced into these brutal games. However, the owners of CAPE are determined to safeguard their status quo, and they will go to extreme lengths to stop anyone who challenges them. Thurwar’s attempts to resist the system have devastating consequences.

Chain-Gang All-Stars” is a powerful book that sheds light on the American prison system’s problematic alliance with systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration. It critically examines the situation from various perspectives, from the Links in the field to the protestors, the CAPE employees, and beyond. The book offers a clear-eyed reckoning of what freedom really means in America. It is a noteworthy contribution from a “new and necessary American voice,” as described by Tommy Orange in The New York Times Book Review.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Regarding gifts made this month, I will match dollar for dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Followers

Read: December 2021

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Followers

by Megan Angelo

Followers by Megan Angelo is one of NPR’s Books We Love from 2020. Goodreads describes this as an electrifying story of two ambitious friends, the dark choices they make, and the stunning moment that changes the world as we know it forever.

Followers is a novel, but it could easily be read as history with all that has occurred with technology and social media. With the increased discussion of the Metaverse, how close are we to a significant spill of personal information? With the focus on followers defining our culture, how close are we to being manipulated by social media?

As a wannabe blogger, I am impressed by a handful of likes on social media and two comments on my posts. Although I can understand the temptation of Orla and Floss to manipulate the system for their benefit, it is something I know I would not do even if I had the skills.

The spill of personal information is described in a very plausible way. It is not just credit card data but private conversations, photos, and secrets that are spilled and alter the world as we know it. Is this possible? Hopefully not, but without adequate privacy regulations, we may all wake up one day to know that our most private secrets become known by everyone.

Marlow, the daughter of two mothers, along with Orla, provides an option of how we might all leave with less reliance on blue screens. As a secessionist nation in NJ, Atlantis was an interesting alternate reality.

Goodreads provides this overview if you are not convinced to read this book.

Orla Cadden is a budding novelist stuck in a dead-end job, writing clickbait about movie-star hookups and influencer yoga moves. Then Orla meets Floss ― a striving wannabe A-lister ― who comes up with a plan for launching them both into the high-profile lives they dream about. So what if Orla and Floss’s methods are a little shady and sometimes people get hurt? Their legions of followers can’t be wrong.

Thirty-five years later, in a closed California village where government-appointed celebrities live every moment of the day on camera, a woman named Marlow discovers a shattering secret about her past. Despite her massive popularity ― twelve million loyal followers ― Marlow dreams of fleeing the corporate sponsors who would do anything to keep her on-screen. When she learns that her whole family history is based on a lie, Marlow finally summons the courage to run in search of the truth, no matter the risks.

Followers traces the paths of Orla, Floss and Marlow as they wind through time toward each other, and toward a cataclysmic event that sends America into lasting upheaval. At turns wry and tender, bleak and hopeful, this darkly funny story reminds us that even if we obsess over famous people we’ll never meet, what we crave is genuine human connection.

I recommend Followers as not only a good read but an allegory of our technology-dominated culture.

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The Furrows- A Novel

Read: October 2022

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The Furrows: A Novel

by Namwali Serpell

The Furrows: A Novel by Namwali Serpell is a bold exploration of memory and mourning that twists unexpectedly into a story of mistaken identity, double consciousness, and the wishful—and sometimes willful—longing for reunion with those we’ve lost. Namwali Serpell’s remarkable new novel captures the uncanny experience of grief, the way the past breaks over the present like waves in the sea. I highly recommend this book.

The Furrows: A Novel reminded me of my longing to be reunited with Jan. I know it is impossible, but that does not keep me from desiring the unattainable. Reading this novel helped me remind me that Jan is still with me in spirit and that is far better than reuniting with her.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Cassandra Williams is twelve, and her little brother Wayne is seven. One day, an accident happens when they’re alone together, and Wayne is lost forever. Or so it seems. Though his body is never recovered, their mother, unable to give up hope, launches an organization dedicated to missing children. Their father leaves and starts another family somewhere else.

As C grows older, she sees her brother everywhere: in coffee shops, airplane aisles, subway cars, and cities on either coast. Here is her brother’s more aging face, the light in his eyes, his lanky limbs, the way he seems to recognize her too. But it can’t be, of course. Or can it? Disaster strikes again, and C meets a man, both mysterious and strangely familiar, who is also searching for someone and his place in the world. His name is Wayne.

Namwali Serpell’s remarkable novel captures the ongoing and uncanny experience of grief–the past breaking over the present like waves in the sea. The Furrows is a bold and beautiful exploration of memory and mourning that twists unexpectedly into a masterful story of black identity, double consciousness, and the wishful and sometimes willful longing for reunion with those we’ve lost.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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The New Earth

Read: April 2023

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The New Earth

by Jess Row

The New Earth, by Jess Row, is a commanding investigation of our deep and impossible desire to undo the injustices we have both inflicted and been forced to endure. When I read books about dysfunctional families, I am reminded of how important family is to our health and how blessed I am not to be a member of a family like the one Jess Row has created. I highly recommend this book!

The Wilcoxes saga is a case study of the difficulties of modern relationships. The reunion at the wedding of their daughter Winter unfolds in a manner that keeps the reader engaged until the final words appear on the page. Lies, infidelity, and how these actions compound and create problems for the younger generation is a book well worth reading.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

For fifteen years, the Wilcoxes have been a family in name only. Though never the picture of happiness, they once seemed like a typical white Jewish clan from the Upper West Side. But in the early 2000s, two events ruptured the relationships between them. First, Naomi revealed to her children that her biological father was Black. In the aftermath, college-age daughter Bering left home to become a radical peace activist in Palestine’s West Bank, where an Israeli Army sniper killed her.

In 2018, Winter Wilcox is getting married, and her only demand is that her mother, father, and brother emerge from their self-imposed isolations and gather once more. After decades of neglecting personal and political wounds, each remaining family member must face their fractured history and decide if they can ever reconcile.

Assembling a vast chorus of voices and ideas from across the globe, Jess Row “explodes the saga from within–blows the roof off, so to speak, to let in politics, race, theory, and the narrative self-awareness that the form had seemed hell-bent on ignoring” (Jonathan Lethem).

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

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The Ferryman: A Novel

Read: May 2023

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The Ferryman: A Novel

by Justin Cronin

The novel, “The Ferryman,” by Justin Cronin, is set in the beautiful archipelago of Prospera. People lead long and fulfilling lives in this society until their forearm monitors drop below 10%. Then, they retire to the Nursery. Their memories are wiped clean, and they start a new life as sixteen-year-olds.

Although the book was recently published, I hesitated to read it due to the unsettling notion of having my memories wiped clean. However, my curiosity got the best of me, and I’m glad it did. Proctor Bennett, the protagonist, works as a ferryman, assisting people through retirement. But things worsen when Proctor starts dreaming, which is impossible in Prospera, and his monitor percentage rapidly decreases. Are these dreams fragments of a past that they cannot recall?

Amidst all this, rumors about the Arrivalists, who oppose the societal structure, and even the Support Staff, who keep Prospera functioning, are questioning their roles. Proctor finds himself caught up in a more significant cause than expected and sets out to uncover the truth.

Without giving away too much, things are not always what they seem in Prospera.

As a widow, I found this line particularly poignant: “That loss was love’s accounting, its unit of measure, as a foot was made of inches, a yard was made of feet.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book; it kept me engaged and excited, and my Kindle was my go-to device for reading it. I highly recommend this novel.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

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