When I received The Burrow by Melanie Cheng I thought it could be a good book, but little did I realise that it would be a GREAT book. An easy five stars for me.

The Burrow follows the lives of one family, living after grief. It explores the lingering trauma that remains many years after tragedy, and how each character is not/coping. In short, they buy a bunny that their life briefly centres around in the ongoing wake of their grief.

The book is based during lockdown, which I've read experiences of a few times now but haven't been that impressed by. But this time, Cheng did it so much justice. Maybe it was the familiarity of Australian lockdown to a New Zealander that felt so familiar but unwanted. Cheng incorporated the daily mask wearing, the restrictions of your own home, the essential workers without trying to 'do too much' with it or teeter into contemporary debate.

The story is just a snapshot of the grief that hinders the family, and covers about 3 weeks of their lives. It is told from the point of view of each four characters, and none are given more space than the other. Each of their experiences are valid. I loved that we weren't privy to more - we got just enough to really feel the characters pain, their longing to go back in time, but also their longing to move on without forgetting.

I didn't feel lectured about grief or feeling, instead I just felt that Cheng understood what it is to be human and to feel so much and so little all at the same time. Cheng masterfully investigates the juxtapositions of emotion, for example the care and the carelessness that could be portrayed in the same moment. I found myself sad at the end of the book, with just a bit of optimism that everything would 'come right in the end'.

The pace of Cheng's writing was spot on with both the length of time covered in The Burrow and the book itself. I would easily pick up the book again, and will be on the look out for Cheng's next book!

A spare and deeply affecting work centred around the adoption of a small brown rescue rabbit in the aftermath of an unthinkable family tragedy with multi-generational impacts. In "The Burrow", Cheng writes of mother (and grandmother) guilt, loss, grief, cross-cultural and cross-generational tensions, the adrenaline of the emergency room, infidelity, penance, the ravages of illness and time, and our peculiarly Australian responses to the COVID-19 pandemic (lockdowns; commands in the form of text messages; home schooling/home everything; shouted conversations at hospital drop off zones; an absolute surfeit of vigorous, masked outdoor walking). And she perfectly captures how our animals can save us, and deliver us beauty and joy in the worst of times.

At page 124, on the mysteries of the rabbit: "It was dusk. The sky was the colour of cotton candy. In the backyard, he saw the rabbit do one of those twisted leaps Lucie reliably informed him was a sign of happiness, and rather than the resentment he expected to feel at the sight of an animal relishing its (comparative) freedom, Jin experienced something else entirely. A new sensation he couldn't place. Something halfway between joy and panic. A kind of seizure of the heart."

At page 136, on grief: "Pauline looked down at her puzzle, at its neat boxes and orderly numbers. 'You don't have a monopoly on grief, Amy. We're all grieving. Today. Every day.' She paused to suck in more air. She'd forgotten how much exertion was involved in arguing. She was not the same woman, the same mother, she once was."

At page 177, on comfort: "She couldn't remember the last time her mother had lain with her like this - perhaps it was when Lucie had been unwell, a long time ago, before the lockdown, when she had been smaller and easier to envelop. It was definitely long enough ago for Lucie to have forgotten the comfort of having her mother coiled around her like a cocoon, an extra layer to absorb the shocks and blows that, Lucie was coming to realise, were a part of living."

At page 178, on motherhood: "But it was not a matter of being smart or capable; Amy saw that now. It was a matter of being torn into multiple parts and then standing by as those rogue parts walked the earth, unsupervised and unchaperoned, taunting destiny."

"The Burrow" is a deceptively small-canvas novel graced with an outsized wisdom.

The Burrow by Melanie Cheng is a moving story of a family coming to terms with their grief and familial tensions following an unimaginable tragedy. The book follows Jin, an emergency physician, his wife Amy, an author, their 10-year-old daughter Lucie, and Amy's estranged mother Pauline who comes to stay with them after a fall. At the centre of this quartet, is a recently adopted pet rabbit, who provides a welcome distraction to the family and breathes new life into their home. Set in Melbourne during lockdown for the COVID 19 pandemic, this isolation was the perfect setting for this close quarters family drama.

The prose is crystal clear and precise - there are no unnecessary words in this book. I love sparse writing that speaks to the truth of things and this book has that in spades. The characters were flawed and deeply human, and Cheng provides so much compassion and empathy to all her characters. She has a wonderful ability to write minute tensions between characters and I felt the pace of this book was just right.

This book seems quietly mundane on the surface, but this book is actually full of deep emotion about love, family, life, grief and healing. Highly recommend and I'll be seeking out more of Melanie Cheng's work.

This is the second novel by Melanie Cheng, an Australian-born writer who grew up mostly in Hong Kong and is now a resident of Adelaide. Her collection of short stories, Australia Day, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award in 2018.

Perhaps in keeping with the timid creature depicted on the cover (designed by W. H. Chong and featuring a beautiful watercolour by Phil Day), this is on the surface a very quiet, understated book; but of course there is a lot going on beneath that surface, down in the burrow.

Set in the suburbs of Melbourne while the city was still under the travel restrictions and curfew imposed by the State Government to try to manage the COVID pandemic, the story focuses on one particular family, who are still struggling in the aftermath of a devastating tragedy a few years earlier.

The book opens with the acquisition by the family of a floppy-eared baby rabbit as a pet. The family comprises the father Jin, a hospital doctor; his wife Amy, an aspiring writer; and their 11-year-old daughter Lucie. There’s also Pauline, Amy’s mother and Lucie’s grandmother, who after breaking her wrist in a fall, needs to stay with them for a while shortly after the novel begins.

Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of these characters—we even get a couple of short snippets from the rabbit’s point of view—providing us with deep insights into the strained relationships in the family and how they are dealing with the tragic death of a young child.
That tragedy was the death by drowning of Lucie’s baby sister Ruby. It takes a long while for the full details of this terrible accident to be uncovered for us, but it’s quickly clear that it involved Pauline in some way, and though it turns out that she can’t be blamed for what happened she nevertheless heavily blames herself.

So guilt, remorse and suppressed anger vibrate like taut wires between all of the adults in the novel; and however much the grownups try to conceal these tensions from her, they are not unobserved and thought about by young Lucie.

There are other sources of tension: Amy’s frustrated need for quiet and isolation in order to write; Pauline’s anger about the serial infidelity of Amy’s father during their marriage; Jin’s heavy workload and his bitterly-regretted secret affair with a work-colleague. Towards the end of the book, these buried secrets and resentments finally come to light, and are put into words which shake up the characters’ relationships as never before.

Through all of this runs the presence of the little rabbit, symbolising the fragility of life while also representing a focus for love and care. When it falls ill, every one of the family is, for a time, united in concern.

The epigraph of the book from Franz Kafka is perfectly chosen, and sums up the theme very well:

The most beautiful thing about my burrow is the stillness. Of course, that is deceptive. At any moment it may be shattered and then all will be over.

Definitely recommended.

The Burrow is a difficult book to categorise. I finally settled on the focus is recovery, everyone is unsettled, three generations of women, a rabbit and the father, husband and son in law. The time is lockdown and the pointers are there of masks, interrupted schooling and restrictions on movement. They all left their scars on families. Melanie Cheng treads carefully through the family relationship and the rabbit works hard to be the glue that will hold them together. The writing is lyrical, the pace is considered and I’m struggling a bit to think of the lessons. Maybe that it’s in the case of tragedy all things will pass and I’m sure there is a place for that learning through The Burrow.

I’ve not read any of Melanie Cheng’s earlier work but having just finished her latest novel, I need to change that ASAP.

THE BURROW follows a family navigating grief and healing following an imaginable tragedy and in the midst of the pandemic. Jin and Amy adopt a rabbit for their 10 year-old daughter, Lucie, intended as a welcome distraction. When Amy’s estranged mother comes to stay while recovering from a fall, their precariously balanced shared and private grieving is disrupted and everyone must reckon with the past and each other.

Yes it’s a pandemic novel of sorts, which some of us quickly tire of reading these days, but it was both central and peripheral to the story. I think the ebb and flows of the story needed it there but it didn’t take over the story or detract from it either. So please don’t let this aspect of it turn you off from picking it up!

Cheng has crafted an incredibly moving rendering of an ordinary family living an ordinary life with extraordinary moments. Her writing of the everyday-ness gave me a real sense of comfort and wonder at the same time. She’s also so compassionate and empathetic with her characters, who felt real and flawed and just.. human, really.

I’m also a sucker for books championing the special presence animals bring to our lives. Us humans aren’t worthy of them 🧡

This one isn’t out in Aus until 1 October but I couldn’t wait until then to share my thoughts. Such a quietly beautiful and tender tale.

Huge thanks to @text_publishing and @netgalley for sharing an early copy with me. 🐇