Cat Love - by Tomás Q Morín (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A contemporary dystopian elegy narrated by a cat imprisoned in a Schrödinger's box, by the prizing-winning poet and memoirist whose writing "cuts to the core with electrifying force" (The Free-Lance Star).

The indelible cat heroine of this unexpected tale recalls her life with "the Mustache," her beloved owner. Trapped in a one-way mirrored box, displayed in a classroom for people who must contemplate her fate as part of their training to become "Emotional Support Humans," she weaves a self-soothing paean to the poetry, music, and creature comforts she shared with her Mustache--the best products of a society that has gone off the rails in its violence and intolerance.

The trainees in the room, a motley crew our kitty describes with a novelistic flair of her own, are assigned to consider what they feel about her. They also argue about whether there's really a cat in there, or are they just being manipulated? Their daily required quizzes, reproduced in each chapter, are as poignant and witty as our narrator herself; meanwhile, the mystery of her cat-kidnapping is revealed to us, along with her potential next move on a more spectral plane.

An elegy to freedom, dignity, and connection for all living beings, this slim novel engenders powerful feelings in the reader, as it shows us to ourselves from the other side of the mirror.

Review Quotes

"Notes from Underground meets Kafka's 'The Burrow, ' only it's an experiment with the most charming, erudite cat in literature narrating this funny, moving meditation on life, pop culture, and love, that's also a truly original, page-turning delight to read." --Fernando A. Flores, author of Brother Brontë

"Tomás Q. Morín has written the comic novel I've been waiting for. Cat Love is a Gen X masterpiece, riotous and haunting, where Schrödinger's cat longs for better days, but is cursed with the bad luck to land in a cruel box: a thought experiment come to life. As she fights her isolation with the powerful nostalgia that we're all feeling in this berserk American moment, Morín's register soars from snappy to elegiac, ultimately hurtling us into a marvelously surreal place, where it is possible to embrace the beauty of grief. I could not look away." --Jessica Anthony, author of Enter the Aardvark

"The cat at the center of this daring novel might be trapped in a Schrödinger's box but her consciousness is thrillingly unbounded, spiky, unafraid to wrestle with the epic questions. Cat Love bounds between comedy and tragedy, as our tenacious and hilarious heroine struggles to comprehend a bewildering new reality and grieves a stolen life. Tomás Q. Morín has written a wondrous, original, and singularly moving novel." --Laura van den Berg, author of State of Paradise

About the Author

TOMÁS Q. MORÍN is the author of the memoirs Let Me Count the Ways, winner of the 2023 Vulgar Genius Nonfiction Award, and Where Are You From: Letters to My Son, as well as the poetry collections Machete, Patient Zero, and A Larger Country. He is coeditor, with Mari L'Esperance, of the anthology Coming Close: Forty Essays on Philip Levine, and a translator of The Heights of Macchu Picchu by Pablo Neruda. He is a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.