To escape his hard life on the streets of 1960s Boston, Firmin takes refuge amid the stacks in Pembroke's Books, losing himself in literature's faraway worlds one volume at a time. What makes Firmin unique, though, is not his voracious appetite for reading, but that he actually eats some of the books he's read. You see, Firmin is a rat --- a gifted, imaginative rat who possesses a wise soul. In this inspired and poignant novel, Firmin takes readers along as he struggles to survive in the heart of Boston's notorious Scollay Square, revealing what it means to be an animal cursed --- and blessed --- with human instincts.

The award-winning Firmin has been heralded by Publishers Weekly as “an alternately whimsical and earnest paean to the joys of literature.”