Rabbits

(Hardback)

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Description

Tommo has just moved to a prestigious boarding school. A product of the middle class, and with new-found independence thrust upon him, he finds himself invited into fading crumbling country houses.

It's the early nineties and the elite he is now surrounded by is struggling for relevance. Alienated from the mainstream, and running low on inherited wealth, his peers have retreated into snobbery and fatalism. Initially awed by their poise and seduced by their hedonism, Tommo gradually becomes aware of sinister undercurrents and a suppressed rage that threatens to explode into violence.

In this world, half-remembered traditions mix with decadence and an awful lot of small dead animals. And sometimes, not just animals. When Tommo's friend Johnnie's brother is found dead, a shotgun at his feet, he realises there are secrets that everyone knows, but no one speaks about, or even acknowledges. And those secrets can no longer be hidden.

'Darkly funny asSaltburn, but with kilts' Val McDermid

Reviews

'Sometimes sad, often funny coming-of-age story... a fine novel. It is moving, as novels of time lost and time recovered always are'

-- Allan Massie * The Scotsman *

'Rabbitsis an instantly compelling novel; it is simultaneously poignant, peculiar, tragic, and very, very funny. Highly recommended'

-- Sathnam Sanghera

'A remarkable achievement, a novel that so well encapsulates the slightly feral condition of teenage boys tasting independence for the first time ... recreates a world unknown to most readers, like Saltburn, rather creepily repellent, but with all its fascination to the outsider'

-- Linda Grant, Booker Shortlisted author of The Clothes on Their Backs

'The best 2 a.m.-whisky story of madly evocative nineties' youth: parties in crumbling houses, and a sense of time running out. This book is fabulous company youll cancel your own parties to get to the end. A queasy, hilarious joy'

-- Caitlin Moran

'The leap from journalism to fiction is not always an easy one, but in Rifkind's case, my only frustration is that he took so long to take the leap. A darkly funny, often disturbing, hugely entertaining story that sneaks around behind the crumbling facades of wealth and masculinity to smoke a joint and shoot some shit'

-- Tim Minchin

'Rabbits pulls you in and doesn't let go. A dazzling, compelling novel'

-- John Niven, author of Kill Your Friends

'Darkly funny as Saltburn, but with kilts'

-- Val McDermid

Author Bio

Hugo Rifkind is a columnist, critic and leader writer for The Times and a presenter on Times Radio, having formerly been a columnist for the Spectator, GQ and the Herald. He is a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4's comedy show The News Quiz, and an occasional guest on television shows that aren't supposed to be funny at all. He was born and raised in Edinburgh, studied in Cambridge, and now lives in North London in a house where everybody else speaks German, including the dog.