We Could Be Rats: A Night with Emily Austin and Michelle Hart
On Tuesday, my coworker and I decided to take a little trip to Watchung Books in Montclair to hear Emily Austin speak about her newest release, We Could Be Rats, with fellow literary fiction author, Michelle Hart. Hart made my 2024 Reading Wrapped with her debut novel What We Do in The Dark, so I was thrilled to see her and Austin discuss what is already one of my favorite reads of 2025. As a surprise to no one, I laughed the whole time and walked away with a deeper connection to myself and to the world around me. I’m glad I went.
We Could Be Rats is a celebration of sisterhood amidst growing pains, resentment, and an ever-present disillusionment with adulthood. Set in a small, conservative town, Sigrid works a minimum wage job and is prone to extreme levels of escapism. Her refusal to conform to societal expectations completely baffles her sister, Margit, whose productivity afforded her an escape from her childhood. Both women run from their actual feelings until Sigrid’s suicide attempt forces them to confront reality, and reality is bleak.
Real Talk
Austin, from a small, conservative town herself, spoke about how she loosely pulled a lot of the book’s events from her own life. Namely, she cited the experience many LGBTQ+ teens have, where, before coming out, they seem to sniff each other out and band together. In the book, Sigrid and her best friend, Greta, became friends because they were avoiding social interaction with older boys at a high school party. They took refuge in their friendship because they were both delightfully weird and imaginative, but their peers outcasted them for their queerness, not for the world they created for themselves to make surviving just a little bit easier. This sentiment deeply resonated with the audience, many of whom smirked as they likely recalled their own island of misfits. The idea that this was a cannon event in all of our lives made me laugh out loud.
We Could Be Rats manages to tackle issues like suicide, opioid addiction, and childhood trauma with the seriousness these topics deserve while maintaining levity. Austin laughed when Hart pointed this out. She said that she never sets out to write a sad book – she thinks her writing will be funny, but that it always takes a turn for the depressing. This was one of the funniest and most relatable things I’d ever heard as someone who can never keep her own conversations or her own writing truly lighthearted. I don’t know if it is a gift or a curse for me or Austin, but it is nice to know that there is at least one other person out there who does not know how to rein it in.
Hart also asked a series of rapid fire questions to help the audience get to know Austin better. A particularly relatable answer came from “What would your perfect day look like?”. Without really missing a beat, Austin said, “8 hours of sleep–like, sleeping through the night–a cup of coffee, and maybe I would write a little?” She and Hart then bantered over how their backs wouldn’t inexplicably hurt on a perfect day, either. My coworker and I turned to each other and laughed as two people with perpetual body aches and bad sleep schedules and the desire to write with no time to do it. All I can say about that is I am grateful to have never had a unique experience.
Rats!!
We Could Be Rats hinges on brief moments of connection and nostalgia. It discusses how even the worst times of our lives have moments of pink clouds and beautiful sunsets and a deep understanding of ourselves and each other, even though that understanding is often uncomfortable and unflattering. I am new to Austin’s work, but her ability to cultivate a culture of acceptance and radical empathy through her writing was incredibly touching.
The powers that be want us disempowered, disconnected, and divided. What would happen if we found moments of joy amidst the chaos and the despair? Or, as Austin put it, what if “we were rats at a fair…liv[ing] well, sampling every possible ounce of happiness,” even if just for a moment?
