Caversham Critics: Mary and the Rabbit Dream

Mary and the Rabbit Dream by Noem Kiss-Deaki.

Mary Toft was just another eighteenth century woman living in poverty, misery and frequent pain. Mary Toft was the kind of person overlooked by those with power, forgotten by historians. Mary Toft was nothing. Until, that is, Mary Toft started giving birth to rabbits... In Mary and the Rabbit Dream, the sensational debut novelist Noemi Kiss-Deaki reimagines Mary's strange and fascinating story - and how she found fame when a large swathe of England became convinced that she was the mother of rabbits. Mary and the Rabbit Dream is a story of bodily autonomy, of absurdity, of the horrors inflicted on women, of the cruel realities of poverty and the grotesque divides between rich and poor. It's a book that matters deeply - and it's also a compelling page-turner. A story told with exquisite wit, skill and a beautiful streak of subversive mischief.