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Mary And The Rabbit Dream
Mary And The Rabbit Dream | Noémi Kiss-Deáki
1 post | 1 read | 2 to read
Mary Toft was just another eighteenth century woman living in poverty, misery and frequent pain. Mary Toft was the kind of person overlooked by those with power, forgotten by historians. Mary Toft was nothing. Until, that is, Mary Toft started giving birth to rabbits... In Mary and the Rabbit Dream, the sensational debut novelist Noemi Kiss-Deaki reimagines Mary's strange and fascinating story - and how she found fame when a large swathe of England became convinced that she was the mother of rabbits. Mary and the Rabbit Dream is a story of bodily autonomy, of absurdity, of the horrors inflicted on women, of the cruel realities of poverty and the grotesque divides between rich and poor. It's a book that matters deeply - and it's also a compelling page-turner. A story told with exquisite wit, skill and a beautiful streak of subversive mischief.
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TheKidUpstairs
Mary And The Rabbit Dream | Noémi Kiss-Deáki
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In the 1800s, parts of England were temporarily enraptured by the story of Mary Toft, the woman who gave birth to rabbits, until the story was finally proved to be a hoax. In Mary and the Rabbit Dream, debut author Noémi Kiss-Deáki takes Mary from being a dehumanized footnote of history, an anecdote that invites incredulous chuckles, and returns her humanity in rich, often playful, and regularly unsettling prose.

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TheKidUpstairs Mary Toft was a woman so low in the social, familial, and class hierarchies that numerous men and women felt they could use her, physically, mentally, and all too publicly, for their own purposes. By focusing on the motivations and actions behind those surrounding Mary, how they used manipulated, and ignored Mary herself, Kiss-Deáki engages the reader in deep feelings of empathy and rage for the often voiceless woman at the centre of the storm. 👇 (edited) 1mo
TheKidUpstairs The repetitive style of the writing was difficult at first, but eventually pulled me in until, as it would have for Kiss-Deáki's version of Mary Toft, the story pulled me helplessly and relentlessly to its conclusion. I read it in a day because I just could not look away. Highly recommended if you like subversive historical fiction that centres stories of forgotten or misunderstood women. 1mo
Liz_M I just bought this on a whim at the Brooklyn Book Festival last weekend! 1mo
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squirrelbrain Great review! I bought this when it was rumoured for the Booker….haven‘t read it yet of course. 🤦â€â™€ï¸ 1mo
TheKidUpstairs @Liz_M I hope you like it! Sometimes, those books grabbed on a whim turn out to be the brightest gems! 1mo
TheKidUpstairs @squirrelbrain I didn\'t realize it was rumoured for the Booker (it feels more Women\'s Prize than Booker, if you know what I mean, so it\'ll be interesting to see if it\'s listed next year). I hope you like it whenever you eventually get to it 😂 1mo
squirrelbrain I mean, I had a list of about 200 ‘rumoured‘ Booker books so maybe it wasn‘t *that* rumoured! 🤣 1mo
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