Rebecca van Laer

Cat (eBook, PDF)

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Rebecca van Laer and her partner purchase a home and move in with their senior cats, Toby and Gus. Their loved ones see this as a step toward an inevitable future-first comes the house, then a dog, then a child. But what if they are just cat people?

Moving between memoir, philosophy, and pop culture, Cat is a playful and tender meditation on cats and their people. Van Laer considers cats' role in her personal narrative, where they are mascots of laziness and lawlessness, and in cultural narratives, where they appear as feminine, anarchic, and maladapted, especially in comparison to dogs.

From the stereotype of the 'crazy cat lady' to the joy of cat memes to the grief of pet loss, van Laer demonstrates that the cat-person relationship is free of the discipline and dependence required by parenting (and dog-parenting), creating a less hierarchical intimacy that offers a different model for love.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks US
• Seitenzahl: 152
• Erscheinungstermin: 2. Oktober 2025
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9798765114643
• Artikelnr.: 74946875

Autorenporträt

Rebecca van Laer is the author of a novella, How to Adjust to the Dark (2022). Her writing has appeared in The New England Review, Joyland, BOMB, and TriQuarterly, among other places.

Inhaltsangabe

1. Cats vs. Dogs
2. Cats in Families
3. Cats with Jobs
4. The Ninth Life
5. Kittens
6. Cats Outside
7. New Cats
8. Cats in Literature
9. Cats Forever
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Rezensionen

Cat is a quick but deeply satisfying read. It's not just charming, or informative, or funny, or well-researched — it's also beautifully written, with lines and paragraphs that sing with their own music.