One's Company

Starred review from April 11, 2022
Hutson’s affecting and ingenious debut follows a woman’s attempt to find refuge from her tragic reality. Bonnie is known in her small town as the convenience store clerk who survived a vicious robbery in which she was sexually assaulted and the store’s owners murdered. Alone in her trailer, she develops an obsession with the 1970s sitcom Three’s Company, in which she finds a “surrogate family, impervious to death or harm.” After she wins a massive lottery payout, she buys a mountaintop property and recreates the show’s apartment complex. Hutson succeeds in describing Bonnie’s quasi-religious devotion to the pop culture artifact without resorting to pompousness. Rather, Hutson instills the enterprise with Bonnie’s sense of impending doom, which she expresses in self-aware narration: “Farce punishes everyone eventually.” The project unfolds in complete secrecy, the actors and crew required to sign NDAs, read Bonnie’s dry synopsis of the show, and watch an episode. (Readers will likely be put in mind of Tom McCarthy’s Remainder more than once.) Once the giant replica set is built, Bonnie plays the sitcom’s various characters in turn, though her isolated splendor is threatened when outsiders intrude onto the compound. This darkly clever work dramatizes the necessity and fragility of illusions, showing how they can crumble when broadcast to the world. Hutson is off to a brilliant start.

Starred review from December 1, 2022

Hutson's completely original debut opens with thirtysomething protagonist Bonnie Lincoln collecting the largest lottery jackpot in history and immediately searching for a remote property on which she will build an exact replica of the set of the zany 1970s--80s sitcom Three's Company. Once the apartment complex and all the other buildings (e.g., the flower shop where Janet worked; Jack's restaurant) are constructed and furnished, she'll live one year as each character, working her way through all episodes of the show from the perspective of every character. Although Hutson writes in the first person, Bonnie's complicated character, and the horrific traumas that pushed her toward this bizarre fantasy world, are divulged only gradually, thanks to Hutson's precise prose and brilliantly structured, nonlinear narrative. Narrator Rachel Jacobs's sympathetic depiction of Bonnie's obsession, mania, and vulnerabilities helps listeners truly connect with Bonnie, even as her unaddressed grief and trauma make her dangerous to herself and others. VERDICT Unlike episodes of her beloved sitcom, Bonnie's story is destined for an unhappy ending, one that may disappoint some listeners, but Hutson's clever novel also contains many exquisite moments of delight and tenderness, all warmly presented by Jacobs. Highly recommended for all literary fiction collections.--Beth Farrell

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