The Rabbit Hutch

Blandine Watkins is the protagonist of Gunty’s novel. Her act of exiting her body provides the frame for the three days that occupy the novel’s narrative. Blandine, whose original name was Tiffany, was born to a mother with an opioid addiction and a father who ended up in jail, so she spent much of her childhood with different families in Vacca Vale’s foster system. None of these families stay in permanent contact with Blandine, and her aloneness is manifest in her lack of emergency contact. Blandine’s academic prowess earned her a scholarship to the prestigious St. Philomena’s Catholic school, where the quality of her essays surprises her teachers and sets her apart for a potential future at an Ivy League college. While Blandine seeks solace in intellectual pursuits, particularly studying the Catholic mystics, she is troubled by her body and the attention it gets. Blandine, who is “beautiful, but in a spooky way” with “eyes too far apart” and “skin and hair as white as the walls,” hides her body in loose clothing to deny it and grow closer to the path of exiting it through religious ecstasy (63). However, these measures do not help keep her safe, and men continue to be destructively obsessed with Blandine.