The Rat Catcher: A Love Story
1900 Sydney, Australia. When Patrick O’Reilly loses his job at the shipyard (another Patrick O’Reilly slipped into his spot), his priest tells him that the city is hiring rat catchers. The plague has broken out in Sydney, and the rats are getting the blame. The city will pay the public for every rat killed, and is hiring men to kill the rats en masse. Kind-hearted Patrick has no desire to kill anything, but he needs a good-paying job, especially now that he has fallen in love with Rosie Hughes. Patrick gets the job, though he hates the business of poisoning, catching, burning, and otherwise murdering the “innocent” rodents. He is equally distressed by the whole-scale demolition of the poor parts of town while the equally rat-infested wealthy parts of town are merely fumigated. When Patrick encounters the mythic “Old Scratch,” a clever and lovely rat of a hulking-great size, he must decide what kind of man he is.
The Rat Catcher is told in first person by Patrick O’Reilly, and his voice is remarkable and engaging: one of the best-written voices I’ve encountered in a while. Patrick’s early 20th-century Irish-Australian working-class vocabulary, his self-deprecating modesty, and his full-blown romantic feelings make him a wonderful and lovable protagonist. The history of the plague in 1900 is one I knew almost nothing about. Kelly does an excellent job of showcasing the city and its disease prevention strategies, as well as their social repercussions. The story isn’t overly serious because the narrator is such a light-hearted fellow. One wonders whether the subtitle “a love story” is about the girl or the rat. A delightful read, with the bonus of being historically educational.
