Jackets Required: The Good Rat

By Fwis -- Publishers Weekly, 2/29/2008 9:19:00 AM

This is the latest installment in a weekly column by Fwis, a graphic design group that blogs on book jacket design. The Fwis designers judge a recent book by its cover each week on PublishersWeekly.com. 

Title: The Good Rat: A True Story
Publisher: Ecco
Designer: Alison Forner
Author: Jimmy Breslin 

Lying, stealing, raging, murdering, extorting and selling your business compatriots up the creek are not character attributes that most people would see in a good light. Yet here we are confronted with a mobster—a traitor—and we can’t help but want to take the guy out for that other cliché of the mobster lifestyle: a big, sauce-covered meal.

How did this happen? The Good Rat, a nonfiction collection of stories about those who have chosen to break their loyalties with the mob in a manner not exactly smiled upon, chronicles the lives of these most infamous of double-crossers. So how is it that we like this guy? Between the tailored suit, the fat cigar and the assumed history of violence (are those hands gently clasped behind his back, or cuffed?), a bear hug should be the last thing on our minds. The design of this book’s cover masterfully takes advantage of all its potential angles to achieve the effect. The photo presents the rat in a harmless light, his “Who, me?” smile framed on either side by the strong geometry of the type, while the harmlessness of Futura (the same font used by Wes Anderson and Volkswagen alike), reassures us through its chubby shapes and centered place in the layout. No grunge or blood stains—the usual fare for mobster books—are present here, only a kind of warm familiarity most fitting an "Uncle Vincent" and not "Vinnie the Vice."