After trading witty repartee with his rowdy class, he happens to notice something wrong with one of the troublemakers – he has been bitten by a rat… Driven to alcoholism by this harrowing experience, he eventually becomes homeless and, after getting drunk on a bottle of cheap gin, is devoured by giant rats.Īfter this, the story mostly focuses on an art teacher called Harris who grew up in East London and has decided to teach there, despite the area’s rough reputation. Then, the novel tells the tragic tale of a man called Henry Guilfoyle who was driven out of his office job by homophobic bullying from his colleagues after they found out about his relationship with one of the new hires called Francis. The novel begins with a brief and ominous description of an abandoned house in London. This is the 1991 New English Library (UK) paperback reprint of “The Rats” that I read. Needless to say, this review may contain some SPOILERS. But, although I had thought about re-reading “Domain” ( seriously, it’s almost as bleakly terrifying as “ Threads“), I’d been meaning to re-read “The Rats” for ages.

I also read the two sequels ( “Lair” and “Domain”) around that time too. Like pretty much everyone who has read “The Rats”, I first read it when I was about fourteen or so. Smith’s “Crabs” novels all taking inspiration from “The Rats”. Linaker’s “ Scorpion“, Richard Lewis’ “ Devil’s Coach-Horse” and Guy N. In addition to being the forerunner of the splatterpunk genre, it also sparked something of a trend for stories about giant vermin in British horror fiction during the late 1970s and the 1980s, with novels like Shaun Hutson’s “Slugs” novels, Michael R.

I am, of course, talking about James Herbert’s 1974 novel “The Rats”.

Well, for the next novel in this month’s horror marathon, I thought that I’d re-read an influential novel in the history of modern horror fiction.

James herbert's the rats