Sam Savage's 2006 first novel, "Firmin," is a first in a number of ways, including the book format that appears to have had a rodent munching on the edge of the book, creating a perfect half circle of empty space. This is a unique reading experience.

Another "first" is that this autobiography is of an "educated" rat who literally consumes education when he resides in the back areas of a book store, and eats his way through a liberal education. 

It is a beast fable in the traditional sense that the beast/rat is the trenchant observer of the human world and foibles, that know no animal boundaries.

It is also a tragi-comedy, but Savage switches that genre heading in the plot, so that the first, and best part is the comedy, and then in the remainder of the book is a non-attached plot shift where the tragedy is a long descent to the abyss as his two human attachments go the way of all flesh.

Savage designates the name/title "Firmin as being a play on "fur man." It could also be a play on "vermin." 

Review by a Gulfport Library fan