Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle (1976)

An insane rat stubbornly and perversely resists a laboratory rebellion by the other furry experimental subjects.

Book Review:  If that summary doesn't get you, you have the curiosity of a rutabaga.  But the contradictions of this book left me conflicted.  Doctor Rat is a book about the horror of animal experimentation told by a deranged lab rat, but it doesn't shy away from humor.  Animal lovers would seem to be the ideal target audience for Doctor Rat, but they're the ones who least need it, and will be most traumatized by reading the descriptions of animal torture and suffering. Is it torture porn?  Not quite, but maybe.  Readers who are ignorant of or insensitive to animal abuse by humans may well see it as a one-sided diatribe and stop reading.  About halfway through Doctor Rat, despite the detailed accounts of animal misery, the story becomes repetitious, even monotonous; part of the problem here is the mostly uniform tone of the first person narration, despite the changing narrators. William Kotzwinkle is an excellent writer, who I usually love, but even at 215 pages the book seemed overlong.  The story is saved by an apocalyptic ending that left me drained.  Doctor Rat is probably better than it sounds from this review, is certainly one of Kotzwinkle's major novels, and was the winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1977. [3.5 Stars]