Book Review: "My Life as a Rat" by Joyce Carol Oates

I really enjoy going to the library. It really is one of the only indoor public spaces in which you can exist without spending money. You can go in, grab a book and sit down in the cafe without buying anything and nobody tries to kick you out. I like sitting in the cafe because it's right next to the window and so you get a lot of sunlight. I also enjoy reading some Joyce Carol Oates works even though the author herself is a bit on the snobby side. The book My Life as a Rat reflects themes that I saw in The Book of American Martyrs in which people are put in morally perilous positions. So, let's take a look at what I enjoyed about this book.

Twelve-year-old Violet Rue Kerrigan grows up as the youngest in a large, working-class Irish-American family in South Niagara, New York. While she adores her parents and siblings, she quickly learns that familial loyalty is paramount, and dissent is not tolerated. Her father, Jerome, is a domineering figure who instils rigid ideals of loyalty and silence, while her mother, Lula, is distant and emotionally reserved. Despite the love she feels for her older brothers, their casual cruelty and violent tendencies cast a dark shadow over her childhood, foreshadowing the conflict to come. I will have to say that the brothers are really unlikeable people from the outset. This is how we can see this moral conflict happening inside the mind of the main character - she needs to remain loyal whilst also recognising it is so wrong to do so.

One fateful night, the brothers: Lionel and Jerome Jr, commit a horrific act of racial violence, beating a black boy to death simply because he was in what they consider the wrong neighbourhood. The incident is deeply disturbing, but within the Kerrigan household, it is swiftly buried beneath a code of silence. When Violet overhears the details of the crime and unintentionally reveals what she knows, she unknowingly sets in motion a chain of events that will lead to her total exile from the family. This is a shocker in the book but definitely not the absolute climax. I thought that it was interesting to see how a middle-class white woman writer would deal with an issue like this and though it felt a bit 'outside' and not nearly as emotive as something like James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain - it was still a good attempt at showing this violence.

Though Violet does not intend to be a whistleblower, her childlike trust in the adults around her leads her to speak openly about what she knows. Once her confession reaches the authorities, the Kerrigan family’s wrath is swift and unforgiving. To them, she is no longer a daughter or a sister but a traitor, an unpardonable “rat.” Her parents, particularly her father, turn on her with unrelenting cruelty, while her brothers’ fury is palpable and terrifying. She is physically attacked, and when it becomes clear that her safety is at risk, she is sent away, abandoned to navigate the world on her own. It is really something to see her story and I was pretty shocked at how far her parents would go to cover something up. Really, it is here where the story of our main character starts. Joyce Carol Oates gives us a shocking backstory and then, there is something afterwards and the reader has to deal with the consequences. It is written with such emotion and precision that it does really remind me of The Book of American Martyrs, which is another book by the same author I would recommend.

All in all, I found this book to be captivating and interesting throughout. It was interesting to be on the outside of the crime that had taken place for once. It is one of the things I have seen time and time again in the Joyce Carol Oates novels I've read - she takes a perspective in which the reader has to also look at the aftershock of the crime rather than those directly involved in it. Honestly, sometimes they are long but they are fantastic.