The author spent parts of three years observing the rats in an alley near the World Trade Center (including 2001, when the buildings were destroyed). He also talked to city pest control officers, exterminators and others who know about rats. Sullivan gave some facts and some anecdotes, but wrote in a style that didn’t make the facts stand out. He was trying to be poetic about his feelings toward rats, but just managed to be obscure. He also went off on tangents about a union leader and a Revolutionary era politician that had nothing to do with rats at all. He tried to link these biographies to rats by insinuating that rats and people are alike, but it didn’t work for me. I know a little more about rats than I did, but not much.