The Rabbit Hutch is a 2022 debut novel by American novelist Tess Gunty and winner of the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction.

[6] This formally experimental and asymmetric novel is told largely from a third-person omniscient point-of-view, with protagonist Blandine as the focal character.

She is only eighteen years old, but she has spent most of her life wishing for this to happen…The mystics call this experience the Transverberation of the Heart, or the Seraph’s Assault, but no angel appears to Blandine.

Hope is in the habit of killing mice in snap-traps and dropping the carcasses on the balcony of the apartment below, occupied by an elderly couple, Ida and Reggie.

Blandine, who has an enthusiasm for researching female mystics, launches into a discourse on religion, first quoting from 12th century Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen.

Vaca Vale is revealed as a social catastrophe for its working-class residents in the aftermath of the closure of the local Zorn Automobile factory.

New York City developers, with support of the mayor, have procured contracts to “revitalize” Vaca Vale by constructing tech startups in an area of local natural beauty, Chastity Valley.

The plan promises to “attract talent from around the world.” A posh dinner, celebrating the launch of the project, is underway at the Vaca Vale Country Club, when debris falls from the ceiling vents, scattering the attendees.

The narrator explains the origins of La Lapiniere Affordable Housing Complex, dubbed “The Rabbit Hutch” by its low-income residents.

When an offensive comment concerning the recently deceased former child TV star Elsie Blitz is submitted by the decedent’s own son, Joan feels compelled to approve it.

Joan, reading the Gazette article on the recent disruption at the country club, suspects that the odd girl she met at the laundromat—“pale, white-hairled, elven, thin.

Her “auto-obituary” includes a section on Life Lessons, as well as a letter to her only son, Moses Robert Blitz, and closes with an essay describing her first encounter with the Angel of Death at age 85.

This chapter offers postings on the Elsie Blitz obituary page that originate all over the United States and Internationally, including India, Hong Kong and Sweden.

The restaurant was established by “optimistic hippies” and offers “avant-garde pies” with names such as “avocado rhubarb, black mold, strawberry tomato vinegar, banana charcoal, and broccoli peach.” Blandine admits she is not a good waitress.

When she attempts to escape to a quieter compartment, the female occupant tells her “Please shut up and leave me alone!” Jack provides a narrative of his years with foster parents, Cathy and Robert.

He describes the relationship with them as unobtrusive and benign, but people he “never believed in.” He remains a troubled youth, The “brightest thing” during this period is an affair with Anna, a community college student.

Rather than attend his mother’s funeral, Moses travels to Vaca Vale and prepares to punish Joan for deleting his scurrilous obituary post.

Moses has developed a technique of stripping naked, covering his body in glow stick fluid, and entering his enemies homes at night in the dark, terrorizing them.

Both are physically attractive and talented—he “the Cool Teacher,” she “the disposable ingenue.” James is married to Meg who has a Youtube show on vegan cooking.

The only unethical element is that the relationship “was always going to mean infinitely more to than it meant to you, and you fucking knew it from the start.” Tiffany changes her name to Blandine, a teenage female mystic martyred by the Romans.

Graduating from the foster care system, she drops out of high school and moves into the Rabbit Hutch with Malik, Jack and Todd.

A peregrine falcon nesting in the church rafters with three young prompts him to recall his troubled childhood, the only son of a former child film star.

Moses, posing as Mr. Boddy at a Vaca Vale motel, prepares to launch an after hours glow stick attack in the nude.

Clare Delacruz, former personal assistant to actress Elsie Blitz, arranges for the sale of her cremated ashes: $2.3 million, sold to a wealthy fan.

Teresa basically describes it as sex with God's hottest angel.” Joan is lying in bed and hears repeated “blood curdling” screams from Blandine’s apartment.

[11] The section comprises nearly 200 single line entries providing disconnected and fragmented “facts” in more or less chronicle order related to the assault on Blandine.

[16] Library Journal called the novel a "woefully beautiful tale of a community striving for rebirth and redemption,"[14] while Kirkus referred to it as a "stunning and original debut that is as smart as it is entertaining.

"[15] Booklist expanded on the sentiment, writing, "The brilliantly imaginative novel begins on an absurdist note before settling down to an offbeat, slightly skewed realism.

"[12] The New York Times Book Review noted that there are "many bold moves in Gunty's dense, prismatic and often mesmerizing debut, a novel of impressive scope and specificity that falters mostly when it works too hard to wedge its storytelling into some broader notion of Big Ideas.

The insistent nudges back to the main arc stop her novel from creating the sense of invisible clockwork that would make it perfectly satisfying.