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A mesmerizing, fable-like debut novel about a mysterious young Black woman whose arrival in an insular neighborhood threatens to shake its foundations.
When Baby appears in Original Hill, her name is on everyone's lips. A young Black woman is a rare sight in this part of town, and she sits all day on the Foxes' garden wall, swinging her bare feet and speaking to no one. That is, until the charismatic Lucius "Lucky" Foote comes along and touches her, sparking their romance. Arm-in-arm with Baby, who seems to exert a seemingly supernatural pull on the other residents, Lucky is confident he will secure the open city council seat away from Baby's uncle Eugene Fox, the back-from-retirement white incumbent.
With protestors reopening old wounds around the Black neighborhood that was leveled by the nearby highway decades ago and Lucky threatening his position, Fox believes it's not just a city council seat at stake, but the "soul" of Original Hill.
As Baby is woven further into the unraveling community, she begins to stray from Fox's strict rules and question everything, from where she came from to who—and what—she truly is.
"A novel that breathes new life into a classic folktale...[Verrone's] pacing is excellent, keeping the reader in suspense to the startling end...This reimagining is quite good; Verrone seems to have a boundless imagination, which bodes very well for his literary future. A strong and inventive debut." —Kirkus Reviews
"Verrone grounds the story with references to the very real history of Black Americans' displacement in Minnesota and develops Baby's character with fascinating bits of folklore and magical realism. There's a lot to enjoy in this ambitious tale." —Publishers Weekly
"P.C. Verrone's debut novel Rabbit, Fox, Tar is as haunting as it is enchanting. Innovative in its play on one of America's best known folktales, adroit in its exploration of themes ranging from gentrification, political campaigning and racial dispossession to the complexities of race, desire and selfhood, and written with incomparable lyricism and verve, Rabbit, Fox, Tar offers a striking new take on a quintessential American story." —John Keene, author of Punks
"Verrone's sparkling reworking of American folklore's tar baby tale compels, haunts and delights all at once—a remarkable debut!" —Claire Messud, author of This Strange Eventful History
This information about Rabbit, Fox, Tar was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
P.C. Verrone's work has appeared in FIYAH, PodCastle, Nightmare, and numerous anthologies. He has been a Tin House Resident, Playwrights' Center Fellow, and WNDB Black Creatives Revisions Workshop winner. He graduated from Harvard College and holds an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers University–Newark. He lives in Dallas with his husband, a historian.
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