The Rabbit Factory

By: Larry Brown

Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte

Set in Memphis, Tennessee, and northern Mississippi, The Rabbit Factory presents a wildly diverse cast of characters who are looking for love, but not necessarily in all the right places. Helen is a sex-starved alcoholic who combs the local bars looking for the one thing her sugar daddy can't give her. Arthur, Helen's aging sugar daddy, is very wealthy, but suffers from severe self-confidence issues. Believing himself unloved, Eric is a runaway who oddly becomes Arthur's adopted son. Merlot is a college professor with plenty to give, but also a bizarre secret. And Anjalee is a hooker with a heart of gold who can barely stay one step ahead of big trouble. Their lives, and the lives of cops, sailors, gangsters, and some fairly eccentric canines, collide during one whirlwind winter in Dixie.

Breaking new ground while carrying on the rich tradition of Southern literature, The Rabbit Factory is an ambitious and surprising narrative that never fails to entertain as it contemplates the human quest for meaning and fulfillment. Truly, this is Larry Brown at his most extraordinary best. Veteran narrator Tom Stechschulte flawlessly handles the characters' accents while creating distinct personalities for each.

©2003 Larry Brown (P)2003 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"Grimly realistic, tragic-absurd and raunchy, Brown's latest novel returns to his deep South fictional territory and to the characters that he portrays so well." (Publishers Weekly)
"Will not only please his fans but also win him new ones....One hysterical scene is followed by another, all of them underlain with the philosophy that you gotta do what you gotta do to be able to do what you wanna do." (Booklist)
"The truth of the matter is that Brown is one of the best writers we have, able in a sentence or two to cut to the heart of things." (Washington Post)

Under the radar LB novel.

Just so good. Character development and the minute connections between them all is amazing. I love it so much!

More unique any book I’ve read, found myself thinking about the characters while at work!

I thoroughly enjoyed multiple stories told simultaneously with one loose connection if any. Super unique and very hard to explain.

Gritty tale and excellent writing

I, personally, liked the narration but a southern accent has never bothered me. The story IS about the regular people, the ordinary people, mostly uneducated, mostly poor--those people whom we could be except perhaps for an accident of birth.

You don't see many--any?--acts of extraordinary valor or integrity here, just the dark side mostly. This is not a book about heroes, it's a book about real life where there are very few heroes. I **love** the writing, that's why I reread it every few years. One would have to appreciate fine writing to enjoy this book. (Don't read it if you are depressed!)

Cast of characters

I thoroughly enjoyed this title. I had read Joe a couple of times and really liked it, don't know why it took me so long to get to this one. I am a bit biased by being very familiar with the setting, but even beyond that, it was such an interesting cast of characters, and I love Larry's dry, and sometimes dark, sense of humor. I kept thinking of A Confederacy of Dunces, minus the narcissistic main character in that book. The narrator was perfect (other than not knowing how to pronounce "Tunica"), and hit just the right tone.

Larry Brown didn't proof it

A great collection of interrelated stories that leaves you hanging a bit at the end. My only criticism is the narrator's Forrest Gump like Southern accents and his mangling of words such as Yocona, Tunica, and Natchez. Larry Brown wouldn't have let that through.