‘Stowaway: The Disreputable Exploits of the Rat’ by Joe Shute

Eeeeeeek!

You spotted a shadow that clung to the floorboards as it disappeared down the tiniest of holes near the cabinet – a hole you never noticed, a hole that’s practically like a garage. You’ve seen that shadow before and basically ignored it, but now you know what it is and that makes you shudder. It explains the scratching in the ceiling and things missing from your pantry. As in the new book “Stowaway” by Joe Shute, meet your new neighbor.

Manchester terriers were bred long ago for one main thing: to kill rats. Joe Shute got to see that in action one night when he went out with a rat-hunter and his two dogs, and though Shute didn’t get to see the dogs in action, he knew the end result.

That’s fine for a lot of people who think a dead rat is a good rat. Most folks, in fact, don’t have nice things to say about the rodents that steal our food, destroy buildings, and cause millions in damages. Rats spray urine and that’s super-disgusting. They carry disease.

“Rats,” Shute says, “are like ghost stories: everybody has one.” His is this: Shute once very much feared rats. Just the idea of them gave him the heebie-jeebies but as he began learning more about them and writing this book, he realized that he needed to live with a rat, for research purposes. He and his wife brought home a pair of adorable and soon beloved rat pups, Molly and Ermintrude.

Rats, Shute says, are extremely fecund: one breeding pair, according to a journalist in 1813, could result in 3 million young in three years’ time. All those rodents, collectively, have “sacrificed more in the pursuit of understanding the human condition than any other” creature, but they’ve also been the carriers of several deadly diseases. Through the centuries, humans have tried to fix that, to eradicate rats, but the best (and most repeated) advice Shute got was to learn to live alongside them.

We need rats and “… rats need us…” Judging by what author Joe Shute learned while writing “Stowaway,” most people fall into one of two camps on this subject: extreme fascination or extreme freak-out. People love rats, or they detest them, with very little middle-ground. Don’t expect them to leap out at you here, though; instead, you’ll start to think about them in a unique manner.

Over and over, Shute asks readers to consider the “hubris” of humans and “what right… we have to deem which animal is permitted to share the earth with us, and which is not?” To contribute to the discussion, he swallows his fear, creeps into a waterside tunnel, tickles rats to hear them giggle, watches them work, and goes on a hunt for them. It’s a brave, open-minded narrative that leads readers on a journey of curiosity, wonder, and a few good grimaces.

Be prepared to consider your position, and this is a book you’ll enjoy. Whether it makes you shudder or not, “Stowaway” is worth a pEeeeeeeeeek!