I picked up this book because I enjoy histories of cities and had, shall we say, a passing curiosity about rats. I put it down two days later, a reluctant expert on rodent sex lives, extermination techniques, and NYC’s most tenacious scavengers.
A few unsettling rat facts I now know:
- In 1979, a tugboat union strike left New York City’s garbage festering in the streets, providing a buffet for the rat population. One woman was allegedly swarmed by rats so aggressively she fled into her car. New York: where being car-jacked by rats is not outside the realm of possibilities.
- Rats are prodigious reproducers. They will mate up to 20 times a day. Twenty. Times. A. Day. With litters of 8–10, every 21 days. It’s not so much a mating season as it is an ongoing bacchanal.
- Rat math: For every rat you see, there are 10 more. If you see one in the daytime? You don’t have rats. You have a situation.
- The “cat solution” is a myth. The only thing that reliably works is poison. Or, in some parts of NYC, apparently, firearms.
- Their favorite foods? Scrambled eggs, mac & cheese, and cooked corn. Least favorite? Apples. Though preferences, like accents, are regional: rats near a Chinese food dumpster might favor rice; those in Hispanic neighborhoods develop a taste for spice.
The book is journalistic, not scientific, which means we get vivid storytelling but also a few too many introspective detours into the author’s personal rat musings. I skimmed some of those. Sorry, Sullivan. I came for gore and history.
