White Rabbit

Meet Ruth Caster Hubble. Feisty, cantankerous, and irreverent, she is an old woman struggling to maintain order in a harebrained modern world, and today is the last day of her life.

White Rabbitfollows Ruth's progress minute by minute on this fateful day as she copes with the breakdown of her household appliances, her own vital organs, and her faith in romantic love. While Ruth meanders her way through the day's routine, heartbreaking memories surface that open windows into her past. She thinks of Hale, her beloved first husband, who died in 1944; and hopeless Henry, her steadfast husband of 36 years, whom she calls, with a mixture of affection and contempt, a "boob." As the hours tick by, Ruth starts seeing things. A furry white bunny keeps hiphopping across her field of vision, announcing "Time," and Ruth has to wonder if hers is up.

Written with an understated elegance, warmth, and surprising depth,White Rabbitheralds the arrival of a writer of formidable talent.

Kate Phillips graduated from Dartmouth in 1988 and is presently a Ph.D. candidate in the American Civilization program at Harvard.