About the Novel
Hungry Rats: Meredith Malady is a high school girl living in Flint, Michigan. As she moves into her senior year and contemplates a life away from her disintegrating family, her attention is arrested by news of a serial killer. The "Rat Man" mutilates his victims and leaves dead rats at the scenes of his crimes. Meredith alone connects the ritualistic slayings to her own life, as well as the seemingly random murder of a classmate. But she cannot condense the clues to incontrovertible fact. Instead, the connections and possibilities proliferate out of control: water and fire, rats and rain, water chestnuts and trap doors. In the distance, she sees the lumberjacks' apocalypse. She untimately confronts a history even darker than the smoke and fog on the city's horizon around her.
The first draft of Hungry Rats came about in November, 2003 as an entrant in National Novel Writing Month, a worldwide contest in which participants are challenged to write a 50,000 word novel between November 1st and the 30th. It was revised for the first time in August, 2004. Although the Rat Man and the Maladys are fabricated, the Carrs were all too real. Much of the plot is inspired by events of summer 2003, when Connor lived on Flint's Eastside, less than a mile from where he grew up.
Connor most recently developed Hungry Rats as his creative thesis for the graduate writing program at New School University.
His thesis adviser was Jeffery Renard Allen, author of Rails Under My Back and Stellar Places. Connor also worked in a peer review group with Erica Ciccarone, Sarah Grant, David Odegard, and Hosanna Patience. Connor graduated in May 2007. He is currently revising Hungry Rats and pursuing publication options.
Excerpts from Hungry Rats:
- From Part 1, Chapter 1.
- From Part 1, Chapter 3.
- From Part 2, Chapter 2.
- From Part 3, Chapter 7.