This is a disappointing book. That’s not to say it’s not entertaining in parts, and that the rat related historic stories Sullivan has dug up aren’t worth your time. But as this book is modeled on Walden, and attempts to be a natural history of the urban rat, these are marginal issues. The problem of the book is that its author despises its subject. Sullivan freely confesses not to like rats, and he goes out of his way to go out of their way. An odd premise for any study, and not at all a good starting point for observations. Consequently, Sullivans contribution to his subject is collecting stuff from libraries, and the observations in the alley, that his study supposedly started from and centers around, are all but nonexistent. Rats keep close to walls and eat garbage, he tells us, as though anybody needed to spend a night out with a notebook to know that. Ultimately, the book celebrates the cunning and resourcefulness of New Yorkers, with the rats providing a despised tapestry against which to compare human history – adding to the myths Sullivan himself has fallen prey to. Too bad.
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