The Constant Rabbit
A Novel
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4.7 • 37 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"Reads like a crazed cross between Watership Down and Nineteen Eighty-Four."
--The Guardian
"Every book of Fforde's seems to be a cause for celebration."
-- Charles Yu, The New York Times Book Review on Early Riser
A new stand-alone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Early Riser and the Thursday Next series
England, 2022.
There are 1.2 million human-size rabbits living in the UK.
They wear clothes and can walk, talk and drive cars, the result of an inexplicable Spontaneous Anthropomorphizing Event fifty-five years earlier.
A family of rabbits is about to move into Much Hemlock, a cozy little village in Middle England where life revolves around summer fetes, jam making, gossipy corner stores, and the oh-so-important Spick & Span awards for the best-kept village.
No sooner have the rabbits arrived than the villagers decide they must depart, citing their propensity to burrow and breed, and their shameless levels of veganism. But Mrs Constance Rabbit is made of sterner stuff, and she and her family decide they are to stay. Unusually, their neighbors--longtime resident Peter Knox and his daughter, Pippa--decide to stand with them . . . and soon discover that you can be a friend to rabbits or to humans, but not both.
With a blossoming romance, acute cultural differences, enforced rehoming to a MegaWarren in Wales and the full power of the ruling United Kingdom Anti-Rabbit Party against them, Peter and Pippa are about to question everything they had ever thought about their friends, their nation, and their species.
An inimitable blend of satire, fantasy and thriller, The Constant Rabbit is the latest dazzlingly original foray into Jasper Fforde's ever-astonishing creative genius.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fforde (Early Riser) invokes John le Carr , George Orwell, and Beatrix Potter in this tongue-in-cheek political satire of systemic injustice, bureaucratic corruption, and human foibles. Peter Knox, one of the rare humans who can differentiate between individual humanoid rabbits created in the Spontaneous Anthropomorphising Event of 1965, works as a spotter in the English village of Much Hemlock. In this role, Peter secretly identifies rabbits for the United Kingdom Anti-Rabbit Party's Rabbit Compliance Taskforce. But when Peter's university crush, Connie, a rabbit herself, moves in next door right when the Taskforce is cooking up a plan to rehome the rabbits in a work camp, Peter falls into a tangled web of seduction, espionage, and betrayal as he's torn between his career and a chance to do the right thing. Amid a rapid-fire barrage of literary allusions, Fforde displays his signature quick wit on a furious tour through modern British right-wing politics. Playful, biting, and timely, this is a must-read.
