When God Was a Rabbit [Formato Kindle]

(Note: god in the book's title is lower-case, although the cover of my copy fudges this; I'm just quoting the author.)

When I read this book, the line about happy families being all the same popped into my head. Happy families are rare in literature, so when you encounter one like Elly`s in "When god Was a Rabbit", it's a pleasant surprise; however, they don't generate much drama. The conflict then has to come from outside the protagonist, in the forms of her peers, colleagues, etc. Either way, the reader expects the protagonist to struggle with some kind of conflict before coming to terms with it and being transformed as a result.

However, that's not exactly what happens here. All the truly memorable stuff - a kidnapping, many deaths, a murder, etc. - happen to characters other than the protagonist. A childhood trauma occurs early on, but is dropped without examining in depth how that one incident affects how she relates to people outside her supportive family, which is something that should be addressed. There are a few references to how she and her brother are "loners," but that's it. Instead we get her quirky childhood and friendship with another eccentric child - then boom, we're fifteen years later, and even though she's an adult, her past schooling, career and relationships with other people besides the family/a few close friends are never described in any detail. Nor, except for a one night stand, do we see firsthand how Elly's early trauma affects her relationships with adult men - there simply aren't any except the same people who provided support when she was a child. It's true that she's independently wealthy so there no need for her to deal with less than pleasant people unless she chooses to, but this seems a cop out.

Also, several characters are gay, but we never see any discrimination or prejudice from the outer world, which, since the book takes place from the seventies to Y2K, might be expected to appear now and then. We don't even get a reference to AIDS, which certainly affected the gay community in the eighties. It's not that I wanted the characters to suffer - they all seemed like a likeable crew, but it made for a tedious read - and the times drama was dropped in, it came off as sensationalistic.

When God Was A Rabbit marks the debut of author Sarah Winman.

From the publisher Bloomsbury:

"This is a book about a brother and a sister. It's a book about secrets and starting over, friendship and family, triumph and tragedy, and everything in between. More than anything, it's a book about love in all its forms."

Elly is the sister and Joe the brother. And in between are their parents, Elly's friend Jenny Penny, assorted lodgers and god the rabbit.

Young Elly's early loss of innocence in the first few chapters and her brother's promise to protect her always sets the tone for the sibling's relationship. We follow the siblings from 1968 England through to New York 9/11 in the second half of the book. Winman has crafted a novel that kept me off kilter but quickly turning pages from start to finish. The characters are off beat, but the bonds to those they love are undeniably strong. Every character seems to be a step out of time with the rest of the world.

"'That's a good thing, isn't it? To stand apart and be different?' he said. 'I'm not sure' I said, quite aware of my own muted need to fit in to somehow simply hide. 'I don't want people to know I'm different'. And I looked up and and saw my brother standing in the doorway."

And they are different - but in a good way. I found the story of young Elly and Joe to be especially poignant. However, they didn't evoke the same reaction in me when they were older in the second half. That's not to say that the story unfolded in the latter part of the book is no less emotional. It is, but I think it was the loss of innocence on so many levels by the younger characters that was the most heartbreaking. There are many sad moments in this story, but there are just as many funny ones. The secondary cast, particularly the parents and lodgers were favourites of mine. Their acceptance of any and all and their inclusion of those on the periphery into their family endeared them to me. I found the use of god the rabbit throughout Elly's life to be an unique allegorical device.

Winman explores relationships of all sorts with a deft and original hand. But her description of the love between a brother and sister is especially well drawn. An unusual and totally original debut. It will be interesting to see where Winman goes next with her writing.

I find it very difficult to sum up my feelings about this book. It is certainly an interesting debut novel and there are passages which are achingly beautiful but there are also aspects of the novel which I found perplexing. I found the author's treatment of sexual abuse rather superficial. The whole issue of abuse is at the heart of the novel and yet the author deals too cursorily with this key issue.
The whole 9/11 aspect of the book seemed contrived and inserted so that the novel could veer off on another tack. However some of the descriptions of the impact on the victims of that horrendous day are well imagined.
In reality if a woman discovered that her brother was gay I would imagine that it would lead to much angst and concern about the impact of discrimination on his life but the sister never expresses any of those concerns and instead goes out of her way to foster the relationship with the brother's close friend. The sister's reaction never struck me as plausible.
The god/rabbit theme is mentioned briefly but never explored.
Summing up I think the author has included too many themes in her first novel and the reader is left with a feeling about a lot of disconnected threads which are artificially brought together in a too facile conclusion.