I'd wanted to read a book by Joyce Carol Oates for sometime having heard great things about her. So, when I got the opportunity to read My Life as a Rat (2019), I grasped it with both hands.

My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan who comes from a large, poor Irish-American family in Niagara, and whose father is a strict, angry, mercurial and intimidating presence, and whose mother is worn out from her seven children. Violet is exiled from her family after ratting on her brothers who are involved in a violent crime.

There's no disputing the book's power: it is compelling, well written and very immersive. However, the story is also unremittingly bleak, almost unbelievably so. It's not for the feint hearted. I raced through, but that was more to be shot of it than through any enjoyment.

3/5

JCO has done it again and written an incredible book. This is based on a story she wrote years ago, Curly Red. I’ve read the story and this novel is a clear expansion of the events in the story. I felt incredibly sad for Violet. She is just a child and everything that happens is not her fault but the fault of adults she inadvertently confesses to who take control and set events in motion. The way her family especially her father treat her is despicable. She is 12 years old, still a child and is not responsible for what happens to her brothers. I wanted to give her parents a good slap. The book focuses on Violet’s life after the arrest of her brothers and her exile. She seems designed for terrible things as she becomes the victim of trauma again and again. This is heart-breaking especially as she feels she deserves what happens for ratting out her brothers. She shows so much strength. Violet is almost thirty at the end of the book and a reunion with her family take a shocking yet not unexpected turn. My Life as a Rat is a corker. I loved it.

I couldn't wait to read this book, being a HUGE fan of Oates. She never disappoints, and this novel is wonderful. It encompasses all of the emotions I have come to expect from Oates. Heartbreaking, haunting, beautiful. Character development is outstanding, as only Oates can create in her special way. I stayed up ALL NIGHT to finish this book in one sitting, and it was so worth it! Thank you Netgalley!

Violet Rue is twelve years old. One late night she sees two of her older brothers cleaning a baseball bat – and puts the pieces together to incriminate them in the beating of a local black boy.

Disowned by her family, with her two brothers in jail, Violet Rue is forced to move away to live with relatives. From there on her life is hard, and follows a pattern of abusive relationships.

A story about family, about the patriarchy, racial tension, abuse, and family ties that bind. An uncomfortable read at times, but another excellent book from Joyce Carol Oates.

Another fantastic book from Oates. I love her writing and her style, and this didn't disappoint me. And, wvery time her novels differ in style and content, which makes her a very accomplished author.
This book is about a family, their secrets and punishments. The main character is Violet-Rue Kerrigan, who's 12 years old. She 'accidentally' 'Rats' on her older brothers for murdering a black boy. And things roll downhill from there. She becomes isolated from her family, which she loves. Hence, where the title comes from.

I thought this idea and the execution of these emotions were impressive and original. I really praise her for these interesting concepts, and I'd read from Oates anytime.

Thanks a lot to NetGalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

The formatting of my Kindle version seems a bit out (to the point that it disturbs reading), but so far I absolutely ADORE THIS. Feminist and powerful.

I found it really hard to engage with the characters and connect with the book - i ended up not finishing it, which is practically unheard of for me. A dIsappointing read.

Poor Violet Rue.
Violet is growing up as the youngest child in a working class, catholic family with her several siblings. Her father is a hard man to please. especially when he has been drinking and her mother is filled with her own resentment at how harshly life has treated her. Violet's two eldest brothers are accused of being part of a gang who sexually assault a girl with learning difficulties, they manage to dodge that charge but a few years later are accused of a brutal assault which leads to the death of a 17 year old black teenager. They vehemently dispute their guilt but Violet has overheard their conversations and witnessed their behaviour on the night of the assault. Unable to confide in her parents she starts to become stressed. Her brother,Lioniel, aware that Violet could snitch starts to watch and glare at her and then pushes her down a flight of icy steps. Violet is seriously injured but her mother stills ends her to school, feverish and near collapse she confides in a teacher who is kind to her asks her what is wrong. promised that she will now be safe, Violet is taken into care.

Rather than safety, Violet finds herself a virtual prisoner in a care home and then billeted with unsympathetic relatives. She endures horrendous abuse from various quarters whilst trying just to just stay alive one day at a time. She longs for and desperately hopes her family will forgive her and welcome her home.

This is a really well written book. At first I found the narrative a bit jarring as it changes from being Violet's point of view to a third person almost speaking to Violet (e.g. You did not see your brother's sideways glances) but I soon got used to it. I also found the ending a bit abrupt - but that was probably because I really wanted the story of Vi'let to continue.

I really liked Joyce Carol Oates short stories that I read many years ago but didn't enjoy her novel We were the Mulvaney's. However, the more I read of this book the more I was pulled into Violet's horrific world. Really well observed.

Oh my goodness, what a very depressing read. I supposed it's reality, as some know it, but don't read to be immersed in a depressing, violent, inevitably sad reality. There's nothing I can say that's positive about this book. Nobody behaves with courage or decency. Nobody is anybody I would like to meet, I just feel pity.

An unsettling novel that questions family loyalties. I found it hard to connect with the 'voice' of the main character at first, but the theme of personal responsibility and 'speaking out' feels painfully current.

It never ceases to amaze me that an author as erudite as Joyce Carol Oates can get ‘down and dirty’ with the poorest of society.

As in ‘We were the Mulvaneys’, the story here explores what happens when secrets and lies are allowed, even encouraged, to fester. Violet Rue’s family live just above the breadline, their Vietnam vet father imagining slights from better off members of the family and her mother refusing to let her daughter enter, as a welcomed guest, a house which in her own young days she scrubbed on her knees.

As often happens with large families – there are seven children here – ranks are closed against the outside world and it’s ‘us and them’. When Violet Rue blurts out the truth (rats) about the murder of a local boy, she is the one at fault, ostracised and abandoned by her immediate family. In the years that follow she becomes prey to casual bullies and predatory perverts.

However, what could have been ‘mis-lit’ is transformed by the author’s almost lyrical style and insight. Her language makes me catch my breath at times. To give an example: “Living with adults, you live with the husks of their old lost lives. Like snakes’ husks, or the husks of locusts underfoot.”

I will definitely be recommending this to my book group.

My Life as a Rat is a powerful new novel from Joyce Carol Oates.
Violet Rue Kerrigan has grown up being her father's favourite child in a brutal blue-collar Catholic family. The Kerrigan’s have a strong sense of persecution and insecurity. Nothing can ever be their fault, and the world is out to get them. They are a family of bullies and thugs. As in her previous book, The Hazards of Time Travel, this feels like another comment on the Trump administration.
One day, two of her brothers commit a violent racist murder. Violet Rue accidentally sees them discussing it, and hiding the murder weapon. She cannot cope with the pressures of this dark knowledge, and eventually blurts it out to a teacher. As a consequence she is badly injured by one of the brothers, and sent away to live with her Aunt.
Violet is deeply traumatised and treated as damaged goods by most people she encounters, with horrifying consequences. It should be said that this book is not for the faint-hearted. The whole Kerrigan family blames her for what has happened. Fortunately, Violet is a survivor, and she will need this to weather everything this book throws at her.

It wasn’t until I began reading My Life as a Rat that I remembered I hadn’t taken to Oates’ previous novel, Hazards of Time Travel. I had that sinking feeling that perhaps this novel would fail to capture my imagination too, but in fact what I uncovered was a character, Vi’let Rue, the youngest in a Irish-Catholic American family, that really did stay with me. It reminded me of something I read a long time ago about Oates’ method of writing. Though I can’t find the reference to it now (this is my disclaimer here), I remember her saying that certain stories came from a character and wrote themselves without planning. She was talking about short stories, but still, there is this feeling, as you read her work, of discovery; that the story literally unfolds in the writing. She finds the character and they tell her their story.

In Hazards of Time Travel I couldn’t quite find my way in the story, I didn’t care enough for the character whose tale was being told. In My Life as a Rat I found Vi’let Rue, once I’d come through her earliest family memories, an extraordinarily compelling character. She rats on her brothers who commit a race crime and this disloyalty colours (sorry) her entire life. Her truth-telling has huge consequences: disowned by her closest family she is thrust into a life of self-consciousness and painful passivity that has frightening implications. It is as if she lives the prison sentence she inflicted on her brothers and as the time passes her fear of their retribution refuses to diminish.

I’m not going to say more about the plot because that would give too much away, though strangely, and perhaps this is why Hazards of Time Travel didn’t work for me, the novel isn’t about plot. I’d need to read more of Oates’ work, but I suspect she is much more interested in characters and their motivations that a series of events. South Niagara and Violet’s hometown have their own sense of character, as if Oates is exploring the nature of that part of America and its society’s expectations from the 1990s onwards. The place has its own character, a landscape and social boundary that weighs upon those who grow up within it. To behave in ways that contravene that boundary can only ever lead to banishment either socially or literally; you cannot belong if you don’t behave in the ways laid out for you long before you were born. I suppose Hazards of Time Travel tried to explore this too, but for me, My Life as a Rat was more successful.

Oates is such a prolific writer that it comes as no surprise to be compelled by one novel and not another. How she does it is hard to say. In this novel the undercurrent of sex and violence flows steadily through the story like the snakes writhing in the Niagara River in its opening chapter. Women with knowledge are dangerous. How do you weigh family loyalty against more abstract notions of right and wrong? It then comes as no surprise that a desire for love can too easily be confused by the longing itself and also with a more naked desire. Looked at in this way, My Life as a Rat feels like a reworking of Greek myth – good and evil, family and sex, pure and impure – there are so many undercurrents for a reader to enjoy. Not out until May 2019, it’s one for the wish list.

Violet-Rue Kerrigan, twelve years old, accidentally 'rats' on her older brothers for the murder of Hadrian Johnson a young black boy, and begins a life separated from her family for her own safety. But in this new life she is suddenly and irrevocably isolated from the people she loves and in constant dread of her brothers' release from prison.

This is a novel about family secrets and secret punishments: 'Punished was something our father could understand. Punished unfairly, he particularly understood.' Heavy on the gloom and doom - murder, neglect, abuse and grooming - this is nevertheless compulsive reading and Oates' writing is superb.

Someone characterized JCO's novel as "misery memoir" and I couldn't agree more; the whole thing feels emotionally exploitative, whilst lacking any depth. The theme of family loyalty and betrayal is definitely enticing, however the story quickly, as Violet grows up, turns into a depressing catalogue of mis-use at the hands of men.

Readers that loved Yanagihara's "A Little Life" will definitely enjoy "My Life as a Rat" as well.

An odd kind of book- personally I just did not like the way this was written. Maybe it was the style of writing or that I felt it did not flow very well.
Not really for me although I did finish it.
Thank you to both NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a review

I found this a bit of a difficult read. I wasn’t a big fan of the writing style but the story dragged you in to Vio-let Rues life. I felt like she never got a break. Hard to put into words how this book made me feel.

I received an advance readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

What a hauntingly beautiful book. Stories like this are real and deserve to be heard . This author has a way of making emotional pain exquisite to read

I'm a huge, huge JCO fan so it pains me to be so critical - but this is a messy book that is also increasingly predictable, a cardinal literary sin that one would never expect to apply to the fertile imagination of JCO.

The first 30% or so draws us in to one of those complicated families that inhabit the JCO universe: the voice is that of Violet Rue, the youngest girl and her father's favourite, just 12 when the book opens, 27 when it closes and from which point she is telling her tale. Without giving away spoilers, this section deals with violence and loyalty within the family, and what happens when Violet unintentionally transgresses an unspoken family code.

From then, though, this descends into a litany of woes as Violet becomes a magnet for every kind of abuser out there and it's unconvincing that she should be such a poor little (female) victim preyed upon by an ongoing series of (male) predators. That's not to say that this kind of masculine violence doesn't happen, it just feels poorly imagined and rather superficially written, almost as if these gender roles are both institutionalised and impossible to overturn. It's the 1990s, after all, and Violet is at university - her utter naivety and passivity, her complete lack of any kind of resistance just doesn't ring true no matter how toxic her experience of family was.

The last part of the book returns to Violet's family... and, yes, more violence is in store for the poor girl.. I don't know - the whole thing feels messy emotionally and structurally and lacks the depth of emotional and politicised intelligence I expect from JCO. She draws some very crude lines between racism and misogyny (yes, of course they're linked) that feel like a throwback to the 1960s or 1970s.

I would never want to dissuade anyone from reading JCO but this is far from her best...