Customer Reviews

The Rabbit Factory: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The title sets the tone: Rabbits are bread as cute pets; but once they reach a "certain age", they become unsaleable. Mr. Studebaker, owner of the pet store, doesn't know what to do with these "older" rabbits. Eric--a homeless employee, looking for a friend after having run away from his abusive father--knows just what to do--kill them and freeze them for meat. How does he know? Because his father enfenced a 7 acre field, and bred rabbits for hunting. The rabbit factory.

In a series of interlocking stories, Larry Brown artfully weaves together the lives of several characters, all inhabiting (all temporarily) Memphis. None have had good luck recently, and only Arthur--a former oil tycoon, now 70, in retirement, facing impotency, and trying to hold on to his 40 year old wife--seems to have ever had any.

A mobster from Chicago has his privates mangled by a post hole digger; his one legged maid has her leg stolen in her battle with the family poodle; a good looking hooker looses two sugar daddy's, and is then arrested for assaulting an abusive nurse working at an old folk's home; a navy man, whose ship kills a whale, and who then suffers brain damage in an unofficial boxing match; and an ex-con, who really, really tries to go straight, but suffers a series of comic mishaps that turn him into first a murderer, and then food for lions (just in case the Rabbit factory image hasn't sunk in yet).

At the end, two of the plot lines remain unresolved. Will Helen stop drinking and running around and return to Arthur, who (probably) still loves her? Will the beautiful hooker stay with the brain damaged boxing naval man? Can anyone ever find happiness?

Or are we all, including authors who labor long over a book only to have it read and then discarded, simply grist for some cosmic rabbit factory we call existence.

More readable than Waiting for Godot, and far more entertaining--but the point seems the same--there is no point.

Like "Magnolia" or "Nashville," this is a mosaic about a group of loosely connected characters, most of whom don't realize their relationships to one another.

Domino, for example, is an ex-con who makes deliveries for a gangster named Mr. Hamburger; Hamburger employs Frankie, a button man who keeps hooker Anjalee as his on-hold skeezer; elderly Arthur meets both Anjalee and Frankie as he worries about his straying wife, Helen, who longs for pet shop clerk Eric; Eric was once acquainted with a one-armed man named Nub who recently hooked up with Miss Muffet, a woman who looks after a demonic dog for Mr. Hamburger, and so on....

It took me a while to get into the book -- it takes some time to get acclimated to all the different characters and you've got to get used the way Brown jumps from place to place and person to person.

But once that's out of the way, the stories speed by. Brown is a master at getting you hooked into one story, then shifting to another one that gradually becomes just as engrossing. He also creates characters that are deeply flawed but surprisingly sympathetic: case in point -- Domino D'Alamo, a dope-dealing, cop-killing no good who will stop at nothing to accomplish his goal (basically "deliver the weed and get paid.") Despite his Tuco-esque flaws, I kept catching myself rooting for him. And in his last scene, when his ridiculous but terrible fate is revealed, I genuinely felt sad.

The usual Brown trademarks are here -- perfectly crafted scenes that look deceptively easy; vivid depictions of men and women and land and violent activity; Brown's obsessions with and depictions of drinking, smoking, money, sex and food. And yet the book also finds the author going in a few different directions, as well, writing about people and places that don't ordinarily wind up in his fiction.

The book isn't perfect. It's a little indulgent and some strands feel incomplete; some of the characters fare better than others -- I never really got too interested in the adventures of college professor Merlot and his law enforcement squeeze Penelope, and I wondered if it was really necessary for Anjalee *and* Helen *and* Miss Muffet to be such man-hunting barflies.

But overall, it's a series of compelling stories and it's good to be back with Brown's kooky brokenhearts and badasses, and to see a great writer branching off into new territories -- whom among his fans would've thought a whale would enter into one of his tales?

Usually I am able to fly through books by Larry Brown. I've typically enjoyed the quirkiness of his characters, especially in the short story form.

Rabbit Factory was basically filled with less than endearing individuals, (hookers, mobsters, alcoholics, men with penile dysfunction) which in my opinion was difficult to deal with. In his other novels there had been some characters that created balance (i.e. Fay which had the police officer to offset her dysfunction) After months of wanting to finish this novel, I finally, with great disappointment, put it down for possible future reading.

Frankie is a small-time hit-man for the mob. Helen is a young wife with too much libido married to Arthur who doesn't have enough. Mr. Hamburger is a mobster. Anjalee is a stunningly beautiful hooker. Jada Pinkett is an old broken down pit bull who has had a late-life ephiphany and now tries to help other animals. Eric is a teen-aged boy who works at the pet store, a young man with the only conscience in the book. All these and many other characters, like refugees from Winesburg, Ohio, seem to blunder through life, drinking their way toward disaster.

As noted by another reviewer, the book is more like a collection of intertwining short stories than a novel. There is no attempt to bring all the stories or the characters together. The unifying element is the terrain, Memphis and northern Mississippi. The epicenter of the story is the bar at the Peabody hotel, where the characters find themselves for their first drinks of the evening.

Author Larry Brown is a skilled writer and is able to keep all these characters and their sad stories moving at a brisk pace. Unfortunately most of the characters are not only unlikeable but also not quite believable. They spend far too much time drinking, drugging and bemoaning their sad fates; their attempts to rise out of the muck are feeble at best. It is hard for the reader to empathize with them as they consistently do what they know is wrong and their lives progressively fall apart. I'm glad I read this book, but I was also glad when it was over. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

This is a great book, carrying all of the fine nuances which we possess as humans. Larry Brown captures human life so well in this impossible to put down book.

You will care for these people in this novel. You will root for a dog in this novel. You will hope for a murderer in this novel. You will feel for a crime boss and the loss of his son. You will relate to a college professor and his large black police- lady friend. You will be encouraged by the loyalty of a homeless kid to an old man who can't get it up. You will laugh and you will sense the despair and hope that ooses from every word on every page. Faulkner would love this story. It is about humans.

Vivillo

Based on Fay and earlier works, I knew Brown's "The Rabbit Factory" would be entertaining, and it certainly did NOT disappoint! A wonderful collection of quirky characters and situations. Just great white trash writing, not to be missed!

This is the first book I've read by Larry Brown and it won't be my last. It's good to see someone else who has captured the spirit of the White Trash South much like Harry Crews has in some of his books.

Much like a Sienfeld episode, this book tracks a number of plots and characters that inlcude a cop killer/drug pusher/loser, an older man and his young wife, a prostitute, a couple of memorable dogs including one named Jada Pinkett and a punck drunk sailor. The stories and characters are all interesting, and funny at times.

Unlike Sienfeld, the author doesn't make a huge effort to bring these characters together. And in the end, you kind of wonder what the point was behind the whole book. In my opinion, it doesn't really matter anyway. This book is merely a glimpse of life among a slice of people that I'm glad I can read about without having to know personally. Along the way, it gave me a few laughs and something to pass the time on my train commute.

The bottom line is that this isn't literary prize winning material but it's entertaining and much better than a lot of drivle that you can buy. More importantly, he's a good writer who has no problem keeping your attention.

I hate to say it, but this Brown work wasn't as satisfying as the other novel's I've read, but still worth the time. More of a compilation of short-stories, Brown walks you through the lives of Domino - a recently released convict with a butcher's job and a plan, Miss Muffett - a disabled housekeeper, both of whom are employed by Mr. Hamburger - a Chicago derived mobster. Domino can't seem to get trouble out of his hair as aids in the joining of Merlot and Penelope, the victim and the savior. Also, Arthur - the 70 year old husband of a younger Helen who is driven to infidelity and frustrated by Arthur's inability to "get it up". Eric, a kind-hearted young pet-shop employee who runs away from home to save the life of his old pit-bull Jada Pinkett who is too old to fight or breed is invited into their home and put to the test by Helen's overwhelming [physical] presence. Too, there's Anjalee - a driven [lady of the night] who needs a way out, and Wayne - mesmerized by her after receiving her services and dead set on finding her again regardless of his enlistment with the US Navy. This book is packed with spinning lives as real as if you were living in each characters shoes. In my opinion, it stayed pretty luke-warm, but a good read none the less.

In The Rabbit Factory, Mississippi writer Larry Brown does something different--this time, he lets humor take center stage. After the darkness of his other books (which were always ripe with gallows humor anyway), Rabbit Factory is a more-than-pleasant surprise. Not that everything is all chipper for his new cast of characters. Hardly. But the absudity of their situations is presented with a bit of a lighter tone this time around. Even a dog gets a few chapters to itself, and they are hilarious. The narrative moves much faster here as well--kind of like an Elmore Leonard tale. If you thought Brown's last couple of novels were a bit too heavy, give this one a shot. You won't be disappointed. The Rabbit Factory should deservedly earn Brown a legion of new fans--and one can sense a great movie just up the road apiece.