{"product_id":"city-of-rats-9780811238373","title":"City of Rats","description":"\u003cp\u003eLife isn't easy for a Parisian rat. But Gouri is getting by: with his best friend Rakä, he's got a small business selling worms to pigeons, a cozy bachelor nest at the local florist, an--as spring blooms in the City of Lights--a budding love interest. But after a double date goes horribly wrong, Gouri and Rakä, along with the royal Rat Court--the princesses Iris and Catarina, and their hilariously unpredictable mother, the Queen of Rats--find themselves adrift on the Seine, accessories after the fact to a double homicide, using their new ally, a small human child, as a life raft. From there, the hijinks metastasize. French police collar the gang along with Mimile, a sadistic murderer who never remembers his crimes. But having escaped lock-up (from the cell they'd been tossed into with their arch-enemies, a snake and a terrier), they pay a visit to the God of Man (a homeless recluse hiding out in the Sainte-Chapelle), but then the giant Rat Devil makes his appearance, full of fiery flatulence and threatening cataclysm...\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTold in a series of letters purportedly written in rat language and posted from Gouri to his former master, \u003cem\u003eCity of Rats\u003c\/em\u003e is the second novel by French-Argentine exile, novelist, cartoonist, playwright, actor, and queer provocateur Copi to be translated into English and perhaps his most madcap work, an X-rated fable where his high-velocity prose smashes through societal taboos--moral, sexual, or otherwise--like a bullet train hitting a glass house. Whimsical, smutty, and surprisingly profound, \u003cem\u003eCity of Rats\u003c\/em\u003e will leave no reader unscathed, and every reader awestruck.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e New Directions Publishing Corporation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/31\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780811238373\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 144\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 01\/19\/2026\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Copi","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52210089459893,"sku":"9780811238373","price":13.56,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_04fe2b72-20fc-410e-a5d2-35c867e22512.jpg?v=1770132431","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/city-of-rats-9780811238373","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}