Black Rabbit Summer (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Black Rabbit Summer Deborah Stevenson Brooks, Kevin; Black Rabbit Summer. Chicken House/Scholastic, 2008; [496p] ISBN 978-0-545-05752-3 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 9–12 It all starts when Pete gets a call from Nicole, suggesting that the old gang get together before they all head off to college or whatever; this means that Pete, Nicole, Eric (Nicole’s twin brother), Pauly, and Raymond all meet up in the friends’ old hideout and then make a late stop at the fair. It all sounds fairly benign, but it’s complicated right from the start by Nicole’s resistance to Pete’s inviting Raymond, a strange if amiable outcast more attuned to his beloved rabbit than to human company. Events are further complicated by booze and drugs, by the involvement of a dangerous local who perennially torments Raymond, and by the appearance of Stella, a celebrity classmate looking for trouble. The result is the ominous disappearances of Stella and Raymond, the strange behavior of Pete’s three other friends, and increasing pressure on Pete from the police (including Pete’s own father), who want Pete to tell everything, and from the young criminal element, who wants Pete to keep his mouth shut. The labyrinthine plot unfolds with slow menace, like a patient stalker, and readers will find it hard to resist watching the portended doom take its seemingly inevitable albeit lengthy course. The payoff is actually rather disappointing, though, with Eric’s secret fairly obvious early on, Stella’s fate an old detective-story chestnut, and the enigma of Raymond’s end likely to bother readers more than it seems to trouble the other characters. The satisfaction here is more [End Page 7] about process than result, though, and the atmospheric noir tale that chronicles a set of former friends destroyed by their own fragilities may satisfy Brooks fans and those looking for a tense and creepy literary journey. Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois