The Rabbit Factory

By: Larry Brown

Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte

Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's Summary

Set in Memphis, Tennessee, and northern Mississippi, The Rabbit Factory presents a wildly diverse cast of characters who are looking for love, but not necessarily in all the right places. Helen is a sex-starved alcoholic who combs the local bars looking for the one thing her sugar daddy can't give her. Arthur, Helen's aging sugar daddy, is very wealthy, but suffers from severe self-confidence issues. Believing himself unloved, Eric is a runaway who oddly becomes Arthur's adopted son. Merlot is a college professor with plenty to give, but also a bizarre secret. And Anjalee is a hooker with a heart of gold who can barely stay one step ahead of big trouble. Their lives, and the lives of cops, sailors, gangsters, and some fairly eccentric canines, collide during one whirlwind winter in Dixie.

Breaking new ground while carrying on the rich tradition of Southern literature, The Rabbit Factory is an ambitious and surprising narrative that never fails to entertain as it contemplates the human quest for meaning and fulfillment. Truly, this is Larry Brown at his most extraordinary best. Veteran narrator Tom Stechschulte flawlessly handles the characters' accents while creating distinct personalities for each.

©2003 Larry Brown (P)2003 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic Reviews

"Grimly realistic, tragic-absurd and raunchy, Brown's latest novel returns to his deep South fictional territory and to the characters that he portrays so well." (Publishers Weekly)
"Will not only please his fans but also win him new ones....One hysterical scene is followed by another, all of them underlain with the philosophy that you gotta do what you gotta do to be able to do what you wanna do." (Booklist)
"The truth of the matter is that Brown is one of the best writers we have, able in a sentence or two to cut to the heart of things." (Washington Post)

The Rabbit Factory is not worth any of your time

I was ashamed to have listened to The Rabbit Factory all the way through in the hopes it would improve. It only got worse. Do not waste a second of your time on it. The book concerns the interrelationships among several Southern lowlifes, none of whom is the least interesting, funny or even raunchy as advertised. Most characters are violent, drunk, stoned or repugnant in some way. Larry Brown must have written something good sometime in order to get an agent and publisher for this dreck, but this is not it.

Larry Brown didn't proof it

A great collection of interrelated stories that leaves you hanging a bit at the end. My only criticism is the narrator's Forrest Gump like Southern accents and his mangling of words such as Yocona, Tunica, and Natchez. Larry Brown wouldn't have let that through.

Gritty tale and excellent writing

I, personally, liked the narration but a southern accent has never bothered me. The story IS about the regular people, the ordinary people, mostly uneducated, mostly poor--those people whom we could be except perhaps for an accident of birth.

You don't see many--any?--acts of extraordinary valor or integrity here, just the dark side mostly. This is not a book about heroes, it's a book about real life where there are very few heroes. I **love** the writing, that's why I reread it every few years. One would have to appreciate fine writing to enjoy this book. (Don't read it if you are depressed!)

Best Larry Brown so far, and Stechschulte nails it

Larry Brown's intertwining plots are fantastic and his characters are so vividly real. And Tom Stechschulte's narration is superb. I loved his automotive sound effects, which were few but hilarious.

not worth the time or energy to listen to,

this book is based on lowlifes of the south, tries to come up with a semblance of redemption, although the characters were well developed the characters and the plots just falls apart at the end,
The author could not pull it together kinda "Stephen Kingish", the author is very wordy through out the book and I kept wondering what is gonna happen next based on this. The narrator was "forest Gump"ish, which would imply there is an attempt at humour, it did not work, it was also like the narrator knew he could not take this audition seriously. the whole novel seems fixated on drinking and weed, It been my experience that people who drink a lot and smoke a lot of weed., talk alot about drinking and smoking weed, I mean c'mon every body was drinking acohol and doing "weed", I really could not beleive I wasted all this time on this book. and what is up with the dogs, and Merlot? (even a character named after a wine, c'mon) this writer had too much going on what happen to the other chacracters, other than the three at the end. was a tape forgotten or something? or maybe the author was having a drink and smoking a joint? thats exactly what it sounded like.
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No ending

I actually liked the stories about the different people and it was clever how he went back and forth between the stories. It's true the "Forest Gump" accent was annoying, but what was really irratating was there was no closure to any of the stories. If it had just had a prolog or something. I don't think I've ever seen such an abrupt ending of a book before.

Gotta love that Larry Brown

Very interesting characters and very funny… I’m not sure why some people reviewed this so poorly? I will say that this book is all about the rich characters… they don’t have a chance to develop because they start out pretty colorful and stay that way throughout the book… There’s really no story to speak of… absolutely no plot… but winding twisting details that bleed into each other threatening to connect all of the characters and never really getting there. So if you need a story with a definite beginning-plot-resolution-happy ending… this is not the book for you… if you’re inclined to dark ironic sad humorous vivid images of regular people I’d say hurry up and listen to this book! I think it was read by the right actor… his style and cadence are spot on… I did find Eric’s voice annoying but not so much that it got in the way of thoroughly enjoying this wonderful book!

random stories, no real plot

entertaining and absurd and funny but the lack of plot makes it a bit boring

Gritty Stuff

I'm not sure why I read all the Larry Brown books as they are full of a feeling of trepidation, that something horrible is going to happen, and it usually does. However, the writing is great, in particular his novel "Fay", if you fancy giving that a try.

Brown makes you feel initial sympathy for his character working in the meat shop, but as the plot continues and the character takes more drastic measures to survive you have to question your feelings. A simple drug run goes wrong, a hilarious few encounters with a yip yip dog, a cheating wife and a troubled professor intertwine in this great book.