When God Was a Rabbit
is a debut novel by a British actress who was nearing 50 when it was
published. It received favorable reviews and won for its author New
Writer of the Year in Britain’s National Book Awards.
The book features the eccentric Portman family and its close friends,
with daughter Elly the central character. The story starts during the
1970s in London, where both Elly and her older brother, Joe, make fast
friends—Elly with an enigmatic girl named Jenny Penny, and Joe with a
teenage lover named Charlie—from whom they have to separate. Charlie
leaves with his father, and Elly has to say goodbye to Jenny Penny when
her family moves to the country to set up a B&B. The relationships,
however, continue to overshadow the Portmans’ lives for the next
several decades. Elly and Joe’s sibling bond is equally prominent in
this story about love in many forms. There are also a couple of elderly
boarders at the B&B whom the Portman family adopts; Mr. Portman’s
lesbian sister, whom the children adore and with whom his wife shares a
chaste love; and Elly’s rabbit named God, who she imagines speaks to
her.
Winman’s characters suffer extreme misfortune—including kidnapping by
terrorists, imprisonment, amnesia after being on the scene at the World
Trade Center on 9/11—but the book is saved from being depressing by
Winman’s ability to mix comedy with tragedy without diminishing the
reality of the tragedy. It may not be true that all you need is love,
but without love, Winman’s characters would not have pulled through
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