The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits (1971)


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Listening: It's Too Late

College senior Carol Farley thinks she's moved on from her childhood, when her beloved father suddenly and mysteriously walked out on her and her mother. But then a newspaper clipping arrives on her doorstep at Christmas, with an image of her father living happily in Mexico City. Before she knows it, she and her boyfriend are taking an impulse trip to Mexico so she can try to reconnect with him. But the beauties of Teotihuacan and Mexico City cannot hide the tension in her father's new home, where his new family seethes softly with secrets.



Rabbits is a book that never felt like it completely worked. Period. Full stop. While MPM can be very critical of contemporary society in her early works, she's at her most judgmental here--from fairly tame habits like marijuana to men in general. Honestly, the whole book reads like a reaction to 60s youth culture, with another one of those young heroines who have oddly middle-aged perspectives on things. There's also a very weirdly shoe-horned-in romance, with our heroine succumbing to the charms of a drug cop at the very last second, when her main love interest crumbles into addiction. (See my notes in Dark about MPM's recent divorce, and the forced nature of the love stories written around the time.)

That's the driving force behind the song choice for this post--both for Carol and Danny, and for whatever MPM was working through. The badly mismatched pair seem to be a method of processing, whatever it was she was processing, which is none of my business and I end my inquisitive probing here.

On the plus side, MPM had clearly had a giddy love affair with Teotihicuan at some point, and her enthusiasm for the local scenery, history and art springs off the page. She does always manage to capture her own joy in playing a tourist in her works, whatever the other issues with the book. And Uncle Jaime (the villain's rather baroque uncle) has his delightful moments, with his oddly charming, old-fashioned drug running and last gasp of heroism.

But over all, MPM's look at then-contemporary drug culture feels like a vexed attempt to write a 'modern thriller', even while her description of seventies-Mexico-City in all its glory is a joy.

Favorite Line: "He kissed my hand. It was the first time anyone had ever kissed my hand, and I realized why people used to think so highly of the custom. He was an old man, and his lips barely brushed my fingers; but I saw possibilities there."

Rating: **

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