The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

This is a good, award winning book, but I did not love it. The book opens wit Blachine leaving her body, a process that is called Transverberation of the Heart. What happens from there is told in a time traveling, non-linear way through the eyes of several characters. The main setting is the Rabbit Hutch itself, the apartment block where Blandine exits her body. Its proper name is La Lapinière Affordable Housing Complex in the made up city of Vacca Vale, Indiana – a rust-belt relic of a place that, having outlived its usefulness to the motor industry, has been left to decay. Nothing but a scattering of incongruously grand buildings and a poisoned water table remain as testimony to the glory days of the automobile company. In addition to the commentary on multi-national corporations and taking care of business rather than communities, there is the analogy between what happens to rabbits in a hutch, and what happens to people who are in too close proximity to each other. There are a lot of interesting ideas and elements in this story, but it didn't set well with me.