Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants FROM THE PUBLISHER
Thoreau went to Walden Pond to live simply in the wild and contemplate his own place in the world by observing nature. Robert Sullivan went to a disused, garbage-filled alley in lower Manhattan to contemplate the city and its lesser-known inhabitants -- by observing the rat. Rats live in the world precisely where humans do; they survive on the effluvia of human society; they eat our garbage. While dispensing gruesomely fascinating rat facts and strangely entertaining rat stories -- everyone has one, it turns out -- Sullivan gets to know not just the beast but its friends and foes: the exterminators, the sanitation workers, the agitators and activists who have played their part in the centuries-old war between human city dweller and wild city rat. With a notebook and night-vision gear, he sits in the streamlike flow of garbage and searches for fabled rat kings, sets out to trap a rat, and eventually travels to the Midwest to learn about rats in Chicago, Milwaukee, and other cities of America. With tales of rat fights in the Gangs of New York era and stories of Harlem rent strike leaders who used rats to win basic rights for tenants, Sullivan looks deep into the largely unrecorded history of the city and its masses -- its herd-of-rats-like mob. Funny, wise, sometimes disgusting yet always compulsively readable, Rats earns its unlikely place alongside the great classics of nature writing.
FROM THE CRITICS
Phillip Lopate - The Washington Post
Few subjects would seem less immediately appealing to the general reader than rats. So all the more credit must go to Robert Sullivan, who has written an immensely lively, enjoyable, learned, witty and, yes, appealing book on these damnable creatures. Readers acquainted with Sullivan's previous triumph, The Meadowlands, about a New Jersey dump-swamp-wilderness, will anticipate this author's ability to take an unprepossessing terrain and expose its hidden dimensions, through ever-widening circles of expertise, paradox and wonderment. He has set up his shop at the intersection of science and belles-lettres, nature reporting and urbanism, and manages it all beautifully.
The New York Times
Robert Sullivan sees the rat as much more than a pest. For him, the rat is the New Yorker par excellence, the plucky immigrant who set foot in Manhattan just about the time of the American Revolution and, by guile and persistence, put down roots and prospered. The rat is also, for those who care to look closely enough, a living map of the city, so tightly integrated into the local environment that to know one is to know the other. Early on, Sullivan goes so far as to call the rat ''our mirror species,'' a faithful follower that turns up wherever humans pitch their tents and toss out their garbage.
— William Grimes
The New Yorker
For a year, Sullivan made pilgrimages to a “filth-slicked little alley” near City Hall to observe rats in their natural habitat. He also trolled libraries for rat lore and interviewed exterminators, biologists, politicians, and ordinary citizens about the timeless struggle against New York’s “most unwanted inhabitants.” The logic behind his peregrinations is often elusive, but the result is a wealth of satisfying information: rats like raw beef, but they like macaroni-and-cheese even more; bringing a rat to court is an effective way to make a point about poor housing conditions; there are more plague-infected rodents in North America today than there were in Europe at the time of the Black Death. Sullivan never falls in love with his subject the way he did in his book on the Meadowlands—rats are rats, after all—but he does persuade us that rats are “our mirror species, reversed but similar, thriving or suffering in the very cities where we do the same.”
Publishers Weekly
In this excellent narrative, Sullivan uses the brown rat as the vehicle for a labyrinthine history of the Big Apple. After pointing out a host of facts about rats that are sure to make you start itching ("if you are in New York... you are within close proximity to one or more rats having sex"), Sullivan quickly focuses in on the rat's seemingly inexhaustible number of connections to mankind. Observing a group of rats in a New York City alley, just blocks from a pre-September 11 World Trade Center, leads Sullivan into a timeless world that has more twists than Manhattan's rat-friendly underbelly. Conversations and field studies with "pest control technicians" spirit him back to 1960s Harlem, when rat infestations played a part in the Civil Rights movement and the creation of tenants' organizations. Researching the names of the streets and landmarks near the rats' homes, Sullivan is led even deeper into the city's history till he is back to the 19th century, when the real gangs of New York were the packs of rats that overran the city's bustling docks. Like any true New Yorker, Sullivan is able to convey simultaneously the feelings of disgust and awe that most city dwellers have for the scurrying masses that live among them. These feelings, coupled with his ability to literally and figuratively insert himself into the company of his hairy neighbors, help to personalize the myriad of topics-urban renewal, labor strikes, congressional bills, disease control, September 11-that rats have nosed their way into over the years. This book is a must pickup for every city dweller, even if you'll feel like you need to wash your hands when you put it down. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
VOYA - Diane Emge
There is a tiny crooked alley in downtown Manhattan that is never lit by the sun. The cobblestones shimmer with the slime of grease, the air is perfumed by urine, and the main adornments are the bags of trash that line the unforgiving walls. Yet after finishing this book, the reader is likely to feel a curious fondness for the place. It is here that author Sullivan spent his nights during his one-year intensive study of rat behavior. Sullivan has an excellent sense of narrative, blending interesting anecdotes and snippets of history in such an engaging way that it really is hard to put down the book. The result is a fascinating account that is much bigger than the title implies, taking the reader from the days of the Black Death in Europe to the weeks following the destruction of the World Trade Center. Consider, for example, that after the explosion of the WTC, the immediate evacuation of the area resulted in unattended lunch buffets, delis, and fast-food restaurants. By the time pest control workers were allowed in the area, the rats had spent weeks feasting and multiplying. While volunteer firefighters received their well-earned share of media attention, few heard about the hundreds of volunteers who worked to combat the subsequent rat problem. By the end of the book, the reader will probably not have lost any sense of revulsion for the rat species but will certainly feel that the literary excursion was well worth the effort. Sullivan's narrative would be excellent supplemental reading for high school biology, history, or English classes. VOYA CODES: 5Q 4P S A/YA (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Broad general YA appeal; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12;Adult-marketed book recommended for Young Adults). 2004, Bloomsbury, 242p., Ages 15 to Adult. Read all 8 "From The Critics" >
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