When a New York City television producer, and mother of three, is blacklisted from the entertainment industry and then brutally attacked, a spiraling addiction and a haunting accident from her past resurface old wounds, illuminating a history of violence and its damaging inheritance.
Grace O’Doyle, the complicated anti-heroine of The Hole in the Rabbit, spirals out of control after a series of personal and professional snafus have her reckoning with life-long recreational drug use. In the midst of imploding in on her home and career, Grace’s cloudy relapse sends her back in time to reconcile with the genesis of her drug abuse and the quiet violence that persisted when she came of age in a culture of firearms.
Motherhood takes a back seat on Grace’s foray into the depths of her addiction, raising questions on how parenthood can collapse at the whim of unresolved demons, and revealing ways in which one might succumb to a life of wreckage over the love of children. In addition to articulating Grace’s downfall,
The Hole in the Rabbit offers a complex comparison of failures in motherhood versus that of fatherhood, examining the “cultural disapproval” toward a willing rejection of motherhood in relation to the ongoing, “culturally accepted” absences in fatherhood. After a series of debilitating mishaps, Grace is forced into rehab, where she has to face what is driving the ruin of her mental and physical health. During her time in treatment, an unresolved secret from her violent childhood erupts, implicating herself and her high-school sweetheart (now husband), Scott. At the precipice of revealing her truth, resolving her troubles, and bringing Scott down with her, Grace is further silenced and ensnared by her past when Scott shows up at rehab and takes her home. In the end, despite the lingering trap of her past and smoking gun in her future, Grace finds a moment of reprieve nonetheless–a temporary release from the vicious cycle of addiction.
The Hole in the Rabbit will suspend you in mid-air, upending your preconceived notions of drugs, guns and guilt. It opens the door to complex and timely topics, such as addiction, addiction therapies, gun violence and gun ownership, driving home the culturally-driven and inherently divine nature of some of the most prevalent issues plaguing American society.
This is a gripping story of a woman wrestling with demons she long thought she had under control while grappling with the gray areas of silent trauma often presented, or disguised, as addiction.
The Hole in the Rabbit continues the gifted Amy Sewell’s exploration of the hidden violence in everyday lives that she began in her first novel, Pocket8s. Secrets and gnawing emptiness lay at our cores in America and Sewell explores these themes with complex, fascinating characters. Sewell is on a mission, and I suggest you join her. You will learn important truths about yourself.
