The Rabbit Hutch

The Rabbit Hutch is the debut novel of Tess Gunty, set in Vacca Vale, a struggling post-industrial city in Indiana. Much of the story unfolds in a crumbling apartment complex nicknamed the Rabbit Hutch, where an assortment of residents live side by side, often unaware of one another's lives. At its center is Blandine Watkins, a sharp, restless young woman who shares an apartment with three young men and longs to escape her body and her circumstances. Over one hot summer week, the novel moves among Blandine and her neighbors, building toward a dramatic event in the building. Told through shifting points of view and inventive styles, the book explores loneliness, faith, community and the search for meaning in a town the wider world has forgotten. It won the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction.