Tess Gunty

Gunty grew up in South Bend, Indiana, and studied at NYU and the University of Oregon, drawing directly on her hometown's post-industrial decline for her debut novel.

The Rabbit Hutch (2022) gathers the residents of a shabby apartment complex called La Chance in a fictionalized Rust Belt city, centered on Blandine Watkins, a former foster teenager fixated on medieval Christian mystics, whose visionary yearning collides with her building's ordinary despair over one climactic night; it won the National Book Award, a rare debut to do so.

Gunty has continued writing fiction and essays exploring class, faith, and the American Midwest's disinvested cities.