'The Hare' by Melanie Finn

'She heard the lie and stood and turned off the kettle.'—Review #156

Mar 28, 2021

Sorry, I couldn’t resist starting off today’s newsletter with the world’s most famous hare. But Melanie Finn’s brand-new novel is not about rabbits. It’s an exploration of the destructive power of gaslighting and the importance of truth.

Here’s the cover:

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I’m a big fan of Columbus, Ohio-based indie publisher Two Dollar Radio. It consistently publishes great books, including some of my favorites over the years, including 'They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us' by Hanif Abdurraqib and 'The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish' by Katya Apekina. So when I saw ‘The Hare,’ one of its newly released novels, getting some press, I ordered it. Side note: I love the little messages included on the shipping envelopes:

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‘The Hare’ follows Rosie Monroe, a young woman who escapes a loveless upbringing and childhood trauma in Lowell, Mass., to become an art student at Parsons School of Design in New York City. It’s the early 1980s, and one day while browsing at the Museum of Modern Art she meets Bennett, an older man with an intellectual and worldly air. They hit it off, and soon Rosie is spending the summer living with Bennett in a boathouse on some rich guy’s waterfront property in Connecticut. The rich guy owns a Van Eyck painting. Next door is the country club. Enthralled by Bennett’s aristocratic anecdotes, his knowledge of proper dinner manners and his access to a foreign-to-her world of old New England money, Rosie misses red flags that increase the tension for the reader. In one early scene, they are headed to a party, but when they get there, the house is dark. On the way back, Bennett runs over what appears to be a rolled-up carpet in the road. Or was it a body? Bennett carries on like nothing happened, but then takes the car to an out-of-the way car wash to be cleaned. Later that summer, Rosie realizes she’s pregnant. After the child is born, Rosie wakes up in the middle of the night and sees Bennett is not in bed. She looks outside, and he’s packing his BMW. When she confronts him, he’s like, ‘Oh, I was just coming to get you, let’s go on a trip,’ and as they drive off in the darkness Rosie hears sirens approaching. I wanted to reach into the book and say to Rosie:

Long story short, they end up in an off-the-grid house in rural Vermont. Bennett claims he has a job at a small college nearby, but Rosie starts to doubt. Just when she realizes that he’s been feeding her a steady stream of lies—about his tour in Vietnam, or palling around with Hunter S. Thompson and Truman Capote—he leaves, forcing Rosie and the baby into wilderness-survival mode, and revealing to her how much she and her daughter had been in danger all along. Finn’s novel is called a ‘brooding feminist thriller’ by The New York Times, and it’s exactly that. There were many times when Rosie was in a jam, and I was like:

I loved how this book kept me on the edge of my seat. I also loved Rosie’s flawed complexity and her transformation from a literal babe-in-the-woods into a hard-boiled survivor. I was fascinated by how Finn shows us the long-term psychological and emotional damage of lies, tying that to recent politics (Brett Kavanaugh cameos), and also the healing power of truth, as seen when a character comes to terms with their true gender identity. This book is an entertaining read, and I learned from it. I think you will, too. You should read ‘The Hare.’

How it begins:

Bennett was a slow driver. He peered through the windshield. The BMW was missing a headlight, and the single beam, alone on this dark road, meandered like a shy child, head down. There were no houses, just dark, dark woods over flat ground. In the passenger seat, Rosie was trying to read Bennett’s handwriting with a lighter, as the interior lights did not work. She didn’t want to be lost. She wanted to be at the party.
“It says three miles past Hayley Road.” Rosie’s thumb was burning from the flame. “Have we passed Hayley Road?”
“Jesus, I hate the countryside.” Bennett lit up another cigarette, an expert choreography with one hand: the car lighter, the cigarette, never taking his eyes off the road, his other hand on the wheel. His hands were beautiful, Rosie thought, large, strong, smooth-skinned, and it was absolutely true what was said about hands.
“Birds,” Bennett exhaled the smoke. “Cow shit. Farmers.”
The party was at an old millhouse way out here in Meriden, four turns off the Merritt Parkway according to the directions. Mick and Keith might be there, Bennett had told her, and Rosie played it cool by not asking the Mick, the Keith? She wondered what they were like, and if she’d get to talk to them, even a few words, “Is there any more ice?”

My rating:

“The Hare” by Melanie Finn was published in 2021 by Two Dollar Radio. 320 pages. $12.74 at Two Dollar Radio.

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Before you go:

ICYMI: Review #155 featured ‘Flights’ by Olga Tokarczuk. | Browse the Archive
Read this: ‘Anti-Asian Violence Must Be a Bigger Part of America’s Racial Discourse’ in Gen offers a powerful and important conversation between authors Alexander Chee and Cathy Park Hong. They explore the overlapping and ‘4D chess’ elements of race relations in the United States. You should read this. Also, if you’re looking to read more books by Asian-American authors and to support local bookstores, Libro.fm has put together this state-by-state directory of Asian American and Pacific Islander-owned bookstores.
Do this: Hanif Abdurraqib will discuss his new book, ‘A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance,’ with Wesley Morris of The New York Times in a virtual event hosted by BAM and Greenlight Bookstore on Weds., March 31 at 7 p.m. The event is free. RSVP here. I’ll be watching!

Thanks for reading, and thanks especially to Donna for editing this newsletter!

Until next time,

MPV