Hot Off the Shelf: The Hare by Melanie Finn

[image description: the book cover of The Hare by Melanie Finn. It’s a vintage watercolor-like drawing of a rose on a green background.]
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a no-spoiler review, so read on without worry!

I discovered Two Dollar Radio in 2015 and they quickly became my favorite indie publisher. I’ve read at least half their catalog and have yet to find a book of theirs I didn’t love. Their latest, The Hare by Melanie Finn, is no exception.

First, the synopsis:

The Hare is an affecting portrait of Rosie Monroe, of her resilience and personal transformation under the pin of the male gaze.

Raised to be obedient by a stern grandmother in a blue-collar town in Massachusetts, Rosie accepts a scholarship to art school in New York City in the 1980s. One morning at a museum, she meets a worldly man twenty years her senior, with access to the upper crust of New England society. Bennett is dashing, knows that “polo” refers only to ponies, teaches her which direction to spoon soup, and tells of exotic escapades with Truman Capote and Hunter S. Thompson. Soon, Rosie is living with him on a swanky estate on Connecticut’s Gold Coast, naively in sway to his moral ambivalence. A daughter — Miranda — is born, just as his current con goes awry forcing them to abscond in the middle of the night to the untamed wilderness of northern Vermont.

Almost immediately, Bennett abandons them in an uninsulated cabin without a car or cash for weeks at a time, so he can tend a teaching job that may or may not exist at an elite college. Rosie is forced to care for her young daughter alone, and to tackle the stubborn intricacies of the wood stove, snowshoe into town, hunt for wild game, and forage in the forest. As Rosie and Miranda’s life gradually begins to normalize, Bennett’s schemes turn malevolent, and Rosie must at last confront his twisted deceptions. Her actions have far-reaching and perilous consequences.

An astounding new literary thriller from a celebrated author at the height of her storytelling prowess, The Hare bravely considers a woman’s inherent sense of obligation – sexual and emotional – to the male hierarchy, and deserves to be part of our conversation as we reckon with #MeToo and the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Rosie Monroe emerges as an authentic, tarnished feminist heroine.

Rosie Monroe didn’t set out to become a feminist hero. She just wanted to move out of her grandmother’s house, go to college, study art, maybe get a scholarship or two so she wouldn’t have to spend all her time outside the classroom working. She wanted a simple existence as a working artist. That’s it. Nothing fancy.

But it’s always the seemingly simplest existences that become the most difficult to attain and that are the most radical to achieve. The world is a gritty, demanding, harsh place at times and survival requires a gritty, demanding, harsh perseverance. The dream of being a working artist isn’t itself radical, though its execution is.

People are quick to judge women who fall prey to manipulative men. Why does she stay? The warning signs were there, how didn’t she see this coming? They tried to tell her he was bad news! They ask why she stays rather than why he abuses and manipulates. They see the red flags in retrospect, in 20/20, not in real-time. They fancy themselves detectives, piecing the clues of her demise together after the fact rather than being empathetic or lending support.

I know. I’ve been there.

That’s why I couldn’t put this book down. I had to know what happened to Rosie and I so wanted her to get away from Bennett unscathed, even as I knew the escape would be possible but doing so unscathed would not be.

And who could blame her? An older man with connections to the art world and New England society, the very world she longs to inhabit and needs to make connections in to be successful, shows interest in her. Tells her she’s beautiful. That she’s smart and talented, even as her peers at her art college treat her like she’s mediocre. Who wouldn’t be drawn in by that? Who wouldn’t dare to hope?

The possibility of dreams made real is alluring. When you see a path to freedom, you take it––even if the path darkens around the bend.

Rosie got the complete opposite of the life she longed for. Instead of a life in the art world, she got a life in the woods. Instead of spending her time making art, she spent her time just trying to survive in an uninsulated cabin in rural Vermont, hunting for her food, counting pennies to provide for her daughter. Instead of rubbing elbows with wealthy art patrons, the only person she rubbed elbows with was Billy, the woman next door who ends up being her closest friend and saving grace.

And in the end, Rosie has to do the unthinkable. A sacrificial act of grief followed by the ultimate act of survival.

The Hare is a modern The Awakening. I’m convinced it’ll go down as a modern feminist classic.

Five out of five stars. I can’t recommend The Hare highly enough. It’ll officially be out on January 26th and you can preorder it here.