What a gift this novel is. The turn of the century is a baffling and uncertain and unstable time, infinitely more so (I imagine) for immigrants and the children of immigrants living in the corpse of a still warm empire. I like to imagine Chalfen's rat as a kind of metaphor and cipher that everyone reckons with in some way or another as they stumble through the world. How can something modified, changing, surveilled, tiny, futuristic, sick, and eternal all exist in one little assemblage? Quite good stuff.