Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. Sullivan tells all, writing, in prose worthy of Joseph Mitchell, a sort of “Up in the Old Rat Hole”: skittering, scurrying, terrific natural history.Ī Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence. Taken with the wisdom of the exterminators, absorbed in ratological study, our writer seems to believe, finally, we are like rats, rats are like us. After September 11, Sullivan returned to his alley to find that the vermin fared well. He comes to recognize one old rodent, and he surely cut a curious figure running beside a dashing rat to clock its speed.

He follows the Sisyphean pros with the enthusiasm of a cub police reporter as they wrestle to draw rat blood from their prey. He travels out of town to consort with the foremost minds of pest control. He salutes famous rat-catchers while he hangs out with the rodent’s natural predators: exterminators. Sullivan studies publications like Pest Control Technology as well as historical texts. That leads to some history of germ warfare, a garbage strike, rat-baiting in Old New York, and a story of the colonial Liberty Boys. Inevitably, there’s the Black Death and how it ravaged medieval Europe, but there was also plague in California a century ago. Contemplating such rat lore nightly in an alley not far from the World Trade Center, Sullivan finds much to chew on. Often a foot long before the tail, these nasty city slickers dig their nests with separate bolt-holes for quick escapes. And, right now, if they’re not eating, they’re copulating. Alley rats, sewer rats, toilet rats-all those urban Norway rats-live in every big city in America. (He provides a menu of Rodentia’s favorite and least liked foods). In his journal of a rat year, Sullivan ( A Whale Hunt, 2000, etc.) deduces that the rat is a permanent companion to humans, living where mankind lives, eating what mankind eats. A skillful nature writer goes on rat patrol and records a year with vermin.

From rats by robert sullivan