Rabbit Cake
Annie Hartnett, 2017
Tin House
287pp.
ISBN-13: 9781941040560
Summary
A darkly comic novel about a young girl named Elvis trying to figure out her place in a world without her mother.
Twelve-year-old Elvis Babbitt has a head for the facts: she knows science proves yellow is the happiest color, she knows a healthy male giraffe weighs about 3,000 pounds, and she knows that the naked mole rat is the longest living rodent.
She knows she should plan to grieve her mother, who has recently drowned while sleepwalking, for exactly eighteen months. But there are things Elvis doesn’t yet know—like how to keep her sister Lizzie from poisoning herself while sleep-eating or why her father has started wearing her mother's silk bathrobe around the house.
Elvis investigates the strange circumstances of her mother's death and finds comfort, if not answers, in the people (and animals) of Freedom, Alabama. As hilarious a storyteller as she is heartbreakingly honest, Elvis is a truly original voice in this exploration of grief, family, and the endurance of humor after loss. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1985-86
• Where—N/A
• Education—M.A., Middlebury College; M.F.A., University of Alabama
• Awards—Writer in Residence, Boston Public Library
• Currently—lives in Providence, Rhode Island
Annie Hartnett is the author of the 2017 debut novel Rabbit Cake. She received her MFA in Fiction from the University of Alabama and an MA from Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English.
Hartnett was the 2013-2014 winner of the Writer in Residence Fellowship for the Associates of the Boston Public Library and has received awards and honors from the Bread Loaf School of English, McSweeney's, and Indiana Review.
She teaches at Grub Street, an independent writing center in Boston and lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with her husband and their beloved border collie.
Personal touch
• Hartnett had an episode of sleepwalking in college after working on a paper for several nights in a row. She woke up in her plaid pajamas at a frat part; fortunately, she hasn't done it since.
• Hartnett's mother made rabbit cakes for Easter, and she herself has started making them, a lot of them. She takes the cakes with her when she visits bookstores on tour.
• When she was young, Hartnett drew comics. One was called "T-Rex & Bunnny-wunny-wunny," inspired by Calvin & Hobbes. It was about a dino who loved his stuffed bunny but couldn't stop himself from tearing it to shreds. His dino mother had to sew Bunny-wunny-wunny up again and again.
• Dolly Parton has been an obsession of Hartnett for years. The author admires Parton's humor, her straightforwardness, and the pride she takes in her work. (Adapted from the publisher and various online sources.)
Book Reviews
Think off-the-wall, think totally weird, think Harriet the Spy meets A Confederacy of Dunces, and there you have it — Rabbit Cake. The rabbit cakes, of which there are many as this novel proceeds, were once a family favorite, made by sleepwalker/biologist Eva Rose Babbitt for her family. READ MORE.
Keddy Ann Outlaw - LitLovers
(Starred review.) [W]inning.… Hartnett’s quirky, Southern-tinged debut relies heavily on Elvis’s relative naivete for dramatic irony.… [The] story is affecting, exploring how a fragile but precocious girl strives to define herself after a tragedy.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [B]rilliant… moving… funny…a stunning combination of youthful and astute.… How a whip-smart young girl handles the loss of her mother and the reorientation of her family; charming and beautifully written.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What did you think of Mrs. Bernstein's therapy sessions? Is she a good guidance counselor?
2. Do you think it helped or hurt Elvis to have the grieving chart? Do you think 18 months is a realistic time to spend grieving someone?
3. Do you think Elvis emphasizes more with animals than she does with humans? Why?
4. The parrot, Ernest Hemingway, becomes a key member of the family. What did you think of the parrot's role in the family?
5. Why did Lizzie bake rabbit cakes? Was it really about the Guinness World Record?
6. Should the father have gone to get Lizzie after she ran away with Soda? If you were Lizzie's parent, what would you have done?
7. Vanessa is a self-proclaimed pathological liar. Do you think she's the only character in the book that lies? How reliable are the stories that the characters tell?
8. What did you think of the religious elements in the book, such as the Ocean Jesus statue and the mother's belief in reincarnation? Did religion help Elvis cope with her mother's death?
9. Should the Babbitts have had a proper funeral for the mother? Was that a mistake that the father made?
10. Elvis has felt overshadowed by Lizzie her entire life. How did Elvis come into her own by the end of the novel? How did she become her own animal?
11. What do you think the Babbitts will be up to 20 years from now? What will Elvis be like as an adult?
(Questions found on the author's website.)
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