I can’t sell this book enough, but also if you told me you hated it, I would buy that too. Dexter Palmer is the author of two other novels, both that I really liked. The first novel is a kind of steampunk retelling (though with lots of fantasy elements too) of The Tempest. The next novel is about a computer scientist working on theories about alternative reality and we stumble upon a glitch in the space time continuum wherein a singular and pivotal moment in a family is replayed from multiple different possibilities.
So from those novels, we come to the English countryside in the early 1700s where a physician and his young apprentice meet a young wife giving birth daily (with some clockwork) to dead rabbits (and rabbit chunks).
The novel begins though with a trip through a traveling sideshow displaying “calamitous monstrosities” or “medical oddities” depending on whether you’re speaking to the doctor or the young apprentice’s minister father.
What follows is a kind of familiar set of storytelling elements about the nature of faith and truth, but then explores those questions of rationality and scientific assumption about biology and human life.
I really liked it and think it’s quite good. It’s based in part on real events and if you’re interested in the book I’d caution about reading up on the case. It’s both compelling and well-written something that sometimes that doesn’t happen with novels based on extraordinary events. But I think this one ends up being quite successful.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Mary-Toft-Rabbit-Queen-Novel/dp/1101871938/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2P4XSGYB1OSW8&keywords=mary+toft+or+the+rabbit+queen&qid=1574711112&sprefix=mary+toft%2Caps%2C295&sr=8-1)