Uncle Brucker the Rat Killer

July 3, 2017
In his debut novel, Wulff plunges headfirst into conspiracy theory, pandimensional genocide, and a legacy of tall tales about the history of marauding rats. Adolescent Walt comes to live with Uncle Brucker partly to escape his father and partly to act as a nurse for his half-wild uncle, a rat killer. Walt’s teenage woes become entangled in Uncle Brucker’s top-secret defense plan when they are entrusted with an inexplicable mission to defend Earth from a new rat uprising. They struggle to survive a world of inconsistencies and improbable romance, in a story with an equal mix of violent conflict and philosophical consideration of American muscle cars. Wulff adopts the matter-of-fact tone common to tall tales on the porch swing. He rarely slows to explain or offer justification for his harrowing twists. The adventure is fast-paced, nerve-wracking, and hilarious, and the conclusion is surprisingly poetic.

July 1, 2017
In a debut fantasy novel, Wulff imagines an epic conflict between humans and a neighboring dimension populated entirely by rats.Walt is a scrappy, car-obsessed teenager who runs away from a broken home to live with his uncle. Uncle Brucker is a strange man, a "Rat Killer" and an unlikely war hero who lets Walt fix up old cars and introduces him to his odd trade. Walt learns to track rats, to speak words in rat language, and, with the help of a cheap pair of sunglasses, to identify people who are somehow turning into rats. Uncle Brucker also tells Walt about the history of conflict between humans and rats. Rats once ruled the world but were defeated by humans and pushed into another dimension from which they stage occasional uprisings and plot their return to power. When Uncle Brucker is sent on a rat-related government mission, Walt finds himself following in his uncle's footsteps and journeys to Rat Land to assist him. Wulff depicts both the human world and the rat dimension with gleeful, quirky enthusiasm, but the novel suffers from inconsistencies in tone and basic mechanics. It is unclear when things are meant to be funny and when they are not, and the discomfort of not knowing overshadows the reading experience. The story also struggles with a general lack of cohesion and with point of view, jumping and switching between viewpoints in a way that seems unintentionally confusing. Scenes shift inexplicably and with no transition. Characters appear out of nowhere with no explanation. The plot rambles, wandering in various directions without gathering momentum despite the battles and outrageous developments that should push it along. It all feels strangely unfinished, as if the energy of Wulff's imagination became impatient with the long process of translating itself into a novel. A promising premise that stumbles on the basic components of storytelling.

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July 1, 2017

At age 12, Walt Thompson found that his uncle's home down the road was a better place to be than his own. By the time he turned 16, Walt was living with his Uncle Brucker, hearing the tales of the rats he'd killed through the years: decades of tracking, learning rat lore, and discovering the truth about these vermin. For Uncle Brucker is a rat killer, and these creatures roamed the earth freely before humanity rose to take center stage. Uncle Brucker insists that the rats are hiding in another dimension, planning to retake the planet. Walt begins his training as a rat killer himself and discovers the work is harder than listening to the stories. One night, Uncle Brucker goes off on a secret mission; when he doesn't return, Walt has to find him, even if he is only a half-trained rat killer. VERDICT Witty characters and silliness permeate Wulff's entertaining debut. Mixing traditional tropes of family honor and duty with dysfunction and fun result in an enjoyable read.--KC

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