The Constant Rabbit

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Thursday Next series comes “a political satire cloaked in Fforde’s trademark bizarre whimsy . . . [that] reads like a crazed cross between Watership Down and Nineteen Eighty-Four” (The Guardian). “Playful, biting, and timely, this is a must-read.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review England, 2022. There are 1.2 million human-size rabbits living in the UK. They can walk, talk, and drive cars, the result of an inexplicable Spontaneous Anthropomorphizing Event fifty-five years earlier. A family of rabbits is about to move into Much Hemlock, a cozy little village where life revolves around summer fetes, jam making, gossipy corner stores, and the oh-so-important Spick & Span awards for the best-kept village. Citing imaginary threats of overbreeding and a radical vegan agenda, the villagers decide the rabbits must go, and soon. But the Rabbit family aren’t easily moved—and strike up an unlikely alliance with neighbor Peter Knox, who knew Mrs. Rabbit three decades earlier at university. With the ruling United Kingdom Anti-Rabbit Party’s plans to forcibly rehome all rabbits to Wales, Peter finds himself drawn deeper into the Rabbit Way, and is about to question everything he has ever thought about his friends, his nation, and his species. Sometimes, it’ll take a rabbit to teach a human about humanity . . .