''Ratman's Notebooks'' is a 1968 short novel by

Stephen Gilbert Stephen Gilbert (15 January 1910 – 12 January 2007) was a painter and sculptor from Scotland. He was one of the few British artists fully to embrace the avant-garde movement in Paris in the 1950s. Early years Gilbert was born in Wormi ...

. It features an unnamed social misfit who relates better to rats than to humans. It was the basis for the 1971 film ''

Willard Willard may refer to: People * Willard (name) Geography Places in the United States * Willard, Colorado * Willard, Georgia * Willard, Kansas *Willard, Kentucky * Willard, Michigan, a small unincorporated community in Beaver Township, Bay Cou ...

'', its 1972 sequel ''

Ben Ben is frequently used as a shortened version of the given names Benjamin, Benedict, Bennett or Benson, and is also a given name in its own right. Ben (in he, בֶּן, ''son of'') forms part of Hebrew surnames, e.g. Abraham ben Abraham ( ...

'', and the 2003 remake of the original film. After the release of the original film, the book was re-released and re-titled ''Willard''.

Plot

The book is set as a series of journal entries, where the unnamed narrator goes back and forth between his life with the rats and his work, in a low-level job at a company that his father used to own. In these entries, the young man dwells on the hatred he feels for his boss, the stresses of caring for his aging mother, a nameless girl he becomes fond of and above all the families of rats which he has befriended and which he uses for company and companionship. Eventually, the young man trains the rats to do things for him. His favorite is an Agouti Berkshire rat (normal wild rat color, only with white markings on the belly, who in the film adaptations was portrayed as a white rat) which he calls "Socrates". A rival to Socrates is "Ben", a large rat that the narrator grows to despise when it refuses to listen to him. The young man uses the rats to wreak revenge upon his boss and havoc among the local shop owners and home owners, whom he has robbed with the aid of his rats. His "ratman" robberies become a newspaper sensation in the area and the man makes quite a stash of money for himself and for the girl he is courting at work. After his mother dies, the young man inherits the house. When Socrates is killed at the young man's workplace by his boss Mr. Jones, he is forced to use Ben in his criminal escapades. He devises a plan to have the rats kill Mr. Jones, avenging Socrates' death. He then abandons all the rats at the scene of the crime, ridding himself of that part of his life. Eventually, as his relationship with the office girl moves towards marriage, Ben and his colony return, chasing the girl out of the house and trapping the young man in the attic. The book ends with the young man madly scribbling in his journal about the rats gnawing away at the attic door.

Reprint

In 2013,

Valancourt Books Valancourt Books is an independent American publishing house founded by James Jenkins and Ryan Cagle in 2005. The company specializes in "the rediscovery of rare, neglected, and out-of-print fiction," in particular gay titles and Gothic and hor ...

reprinted ''Ratman's Notebooks'' in paperback with an introduction by horror author

Kim Newman Kim James Newman (born 31 July 1959) is an English journalist, film critic and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's '' Dracula'' ...

References

External links

''Ratman's Notebooks'' at Valancourt Books
1968 British novels British horror novels British novels adapted into films English-language novels Books about mice and rats Fictional diaries Michael Joseph books {{1960s-horror-novel-stub