Sarah Winman: When God was a Rabbit (April 2024)

When God was a Rabbit tells the story of a close-knit family and their friends from the viewpoint of Elly from her birth in 1968 in London up to her early 30s.

Her parents, Kate and Alfie, have a happy, supportive marriage but have both suffered traumas. Elly and her older brother Joe are thrown together partly because their mother and father are having to care for each other and possibly because they have a bohemian, light touch approach to parenting.

We discussed how refreshing it was to read a book about family dynamics centred on a couple who stay together and provide a secure home.

They move to a large house in Cornwall which is a wrench for Joe and Elly who has to leave behind her only friend, the troubled Jenny Penny.

The family welcome other outsiders into the family circle, Aunt Nancy, who is rather in love with Kate and Arthur and his best friend Ginger. Arthur in particular becomes a much-loved friend, especially to Elly and it was good to see her forming a trusting relationship with an older man after an earlier betrayal.

Elly, possibly emotionally stuck because of the abuse, remains quite childlike and never feels as though she fits in with, as she puts it, normal people. She is a free-spirited tomboy who expresses her own views often to hilarious effect. Her wonderfully inappropriate audition for the part of Mary in the school nativity play was laugh out loud funny.

She tries to continue to support Jenny whose young life goes from bad to worse and the book deals with very serious issues around abuse and domestic violence and the impact of external events. Given that, the touches of whimsicality, like the talking rabbit named God could sit slightly uneasily but as it is written in the first person this may just reflect Elly’s way of coping with life.

The second half of the book felt, to a couple of us, a muddle to begin with and it took them a while to get back into it.

One of the characters suffers memory loss and Elly asks can you still have a relationship with someone with whom you have shared your life who can’t remember your treasured experiences? What is the bond between you now?

The answer is that love remains and how love gets you through life is the theme of this book.

Loose ends are neatly tied up at the end of the story and there was a mixed reaction to this. A feeling of satisfaction or was it, perhaps, a little too pat?

The majority of the group enjoyed this book with one finding it hard to relate to. We awarded it 4/5.