Season of the Rat

A woman wearing round sunglasses reflects a sunset scene with a silhouette of a mouse in the lenses.

In Los Angeles, a rat skitters across a woman’s roof and into her psyche, prompting an obsessive investigation of her lost memories, a forgotten history of gay bars and group sex, socialist colonies and rent, rape, and the transgression of true romance. From the author of the cult classic, I Have Devoted My Life to the Clitoris, comes a mysterious meditation steeped in sex and the high style of Hollywood noir: Elizabeth Hall’s SEASON OF THE RAT.

Advance Praise

I'm terrified of rats, but I was still captivated by Season of the Rat—a hypnotic meditation on memory, obsession, and the ghosts that haunt Los Angeles. I may never buy into the romance of rat life, but I’m fully sold on Elizabeth Hall’s seductive, sun-bleached vision. –Anna Dorn, author of Perfume and Pain

The romance of rat life is the romance of Elizabeth Hall’s arresting, rapturous Season of the Rat — a true billetdoux to animals, precarious communities, and reading as a way of being. Who else but Elizabeth Hall could bring such eroticism to ecocriticism or write sentences as lush and libidinous, carved and charmed as these? Hall is a singular noticer: rat laughter, bougainvillea spangles, leather chaps. I want to read with her always. This is a murine-sized masterpiece. -JoAnna Novak, author of Contradiction Days and I Must Have You.

There is a quiet, controlled dignity in Hall's writing. She is never pretentious, always precise, unexpected, and thoroughly thoughtful. Her voice comforts even when the subject chills. I didn't want this book to end. - Charlotte Shane, author of An Honest Woman and Prostitute Laundry 

A row of tall palm trees silhouette against a colorful sunset sky with pink, purple, and orange hues.

I'm almost charmed

I'm almost charmed

New Work

  • Interview with Elizabeth Hall by Aiden Brown for XRAY Mag

    “Research is an escape in some ways. You get to live in another world… research made me feel so alive. I’d wake up in the morning at like 5am (I’m an insomniac) and the sun would be shining—California sun, you know, every day. It was so beautiful, and I could travel to the sixth century or something and it felt crazy, and that made me really happy.”

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  • Interview with Elizabeth Hall by Brittany Ackerman for Write or Die

    “An amateur sleuth believes they can solve a local crime and avenge the victim, only to discover the system is rigged. The unraveling of people’s naivety is the main thrill of noirs, and also a core fantasy of mine: that illusions can be fully and finally stripped away.”

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  • Interview with Elizabeth Hall by Kristin Sanders for Full Stop

    “I’m more attracted to ugly things. The aesthetic that attracts me is trash and discarded stuff. That’s the rat seduction. “

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ABOUT
Elizabeth

Elizabeth Hall is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles. She is the author of the books, Season of the Rat (Cash 4 Gold Books) and I Have Devoted My Life to the Clitoris, a Lambda Literary Award Finalist.

A woman with dark hair and a bob haircut, wearing a black sleeveless crop top and brown cargo pants, stands in front of an old red SUV with her arms resting on the hood. There are palm trees and houses in the background at sunset.