Description

Bloomsbury presents Little Rabbit by Alyssa Songsiridej read by Jenapher Zheng

PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD FINALIST PUBLISHING TRIANGLES EDMUND WHITE AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION FINALIST CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE SHORTLIST NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION 5 UNDER 35 HONOREE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE DEBUTIFUL ELECTRIC LITERATURE AND MORE

A darkly sensuous tale of awakening that will quietly engulf you in flamesLing Ma author of Severance

When the unnamed narrator of Little Rabbit first meets the choreographer at an artists residency in Maine its not a match She finds him loud conceited domineering He thinks her serious guarded always running away to write But when he reappears in her life in Boston and invites her to his dance companys performance shes compelled to attend Their interaction at the show sets off a summer of expanding her own bodys boundaries She follows the choreographer to his home in the Berkshires to his apartment in New York and into submission during sex Her body learns to obediently follow his and his desires quickly become inextricable from her pleasure This must be happiness right

Back in Boston her roommate Annies skepticism amplifies her own doubts about these heady weekend retreats What does it mean for a queer young woman to partner with an older man for a fledgling artist to partner with an established one Is she following her own agency or is she merely following him Does falling in love mean eviscerating yourself

Combining the sticky sexual politics of Luster with the dizzying perceptive intimacy of Cleanness Little Rabbit is a wholly new kind of comingofage story about lust punishment artistic drive and desires that defy the hardwon boundaries of the self