Book Details:

Author: Philip Dodd
Release Date: 11th August 2022
Series:
Genre: Memoir
Format: E-book 
Pages: 228 pages
Publisher: –
Blurb:
‘Many children have terrible childhoods. But in mine there is a hole…”
The gaping rent that four-year-old Philip Dodd found one morning in the wire mesh of the hutch which had housed Harvey, his pet rabbit, became a metaphorical one which, along with Harvey’s disappearance, has haunted his thoughts throughout his life. In this sensitive, beautifully told memoir, Dodd ( ‘ a small boy with more air in my brain than knowledge ‘) finds himself, if not Harvey, and learns to become at peace with the unknowable and the forces of darkness. ‘The horns of Elfland are still blowing, as Alfred Lord Tennyson once heard them, and preserved them in his lines, and somewhere beyond the border stones, through the mist on the moors, strange folk ride, as they ever did, in the shadow of the dark tower,’

Review

Harvey’s Hutch by Philip Dodd is a beautiful, lyrical, sentimental, philosophical memoir about coming to terms with what life throws your way and making the best of it – the classic lemon and lemonade situation but written with a lot of poise, sophistication and reverence of one’s own surroundings and people.

Harvey’s Hutch is a beautifully written book that takes the readers through the author’s life, step-by-step, year-by-year giving it a very familial coming-of-age feel making it an instantly relatable tale that is hard not to feel a connection to. It is written in very thoughtful and engaging prose that delivers the author’s sentiments in a beautiful litany of introspective thoughts and exposition that I found extremely easy to read, because of the great narrative flow, and was able to connect to.

I would strongly recommend this book to all non-fiction readers and memoir enthusiasts as I am sure there is much to be gleaned for each reader from such an emotionally complex and rich piece of writing.

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