Rabbit Moon
Plunges us into gritty, real-world conditions and issues. Its voice—brisk, capable, almost reportorial—also functions as a high-speed camera ... Haigh’s narrative resembles a police procedural—one that prowls widely to disclose backstories and contexts. Its foremost strength, and Haigh’s steadiest skill, is to fully inhabit disparate minds, hopscotching among genders, ages, economic classes and cultures ... If the adaptive responses of certain characters to what befalls them feel somewhat idealized — a kind of ad hoc dusting of mercy — Rabbit Moon remains impressive for its scope, ambition, vibrant characters and its unsettlingly graphic, resonant story.
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Adept if patchy ... Haigh holds a steady narrative momentum as she bores into each character’s backstory ... Shanghai emerges as a character in its own right, frocked in vivid detail ... At times, though, Haigh’s descriptions feel desultory, random entries in a writer’s notebook ... It’s a solid book that doesn’t quite soar, but at its best it plumbs the elements that compose love.
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Ms. Haigh describes these experiences with empathy but few revealing details and little tension. There’s too much exposition in Rabbit Moon, whose sketchy, unfocused quality will surprise readers of the author’s richly peopled earlier novels ... It’s a foreigner’s Shanghai, glimpsed partially and without an interpreter.
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