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A review by gregy
The Fur Person by May Sarton, David Canright
4.0
I picked up this book at a library sale on a whim, because I love cats and I knew just a smidge about May Sarton, but what I heard is that she was an East Coast analogue to Elsa Gidlow--a woman who lived a long openly gay life across the 20th century and whom younger woman gathered around for feminist and lesbian inspiration in the 1970s and 1980s. There's a picture of Sarton on the back of the book that couldn't be better. I looked at it all the time whenever my interest flagged and it spurred me to keep reading. You'll have to see it for yourself!
The book is a charming, short tale about a cat named Tom Jones, and it is told in third-person limited point of view focusing on the cat's thoughts. The cat begins as a wild Cat-About-Town, but then decides its time to find a housekeeper, so he finds a great, bookish butch-femme couple, modeled on Sarton and her partner of course. The cat then wrestles with the transition from independent street life to entering into a domestic relationship with humans. It's really sweet.
The scenario struck me as a bit precious at first, but with each chapter I got more and more into it. Also, the cat starts out as a roving tomcat, but then he gets neutered in Chapter 8--spoiler alert!--and starts to behave much more like our cat Holiday. Sarton's explanations for why Tom Jones behaves in the ways he does are adorable and often really insightful. She distills and presents the code by which cats live, and it indeed accounts for virtually all of their behaviors and actions. Our cat is a lady with two gay dads, so we're sort of the gender inverse of the situation in the book. I'm not sure that Holiday's life story would mirror Tom Jones's exactly, but it's fun to think about. I read a few of the chapters to Holiday one night and she seemed to grow extra-affection toward me as I read them. She even licked my nose! So there must be something magical about the book.
I'm definitely going to read more Sarton soon. Next on my list is Plant Dreaming Deep. Can't wait!
The book is a charming, short tale about a cat named Tom Jones, and it is told in third-person limited point of view focusing on the cat's thoughts. The cat begins as a wild Cat-About-Town, but then decides its time to find a housekeeper, so he finds a great, bookish butch-femme couple, modeled on Sarton and her partner of course. The cat then wrestles with the transition from independent street life to entering into a domestic relationship with humans. It's really sweet.
The scenario struck me as a bit precious at first, but with each chapter I got more and more into it. Also, the cat starts out as a roving tomcat, but then he gets neutered in Chapter 8--spoiler alert!--and starts to behave much more like our cat Holiday. Sarton's explanations for why Tom Jones behaves in the ways he does are adorable and often really insightful. She distills and presents the code by which cats live, and it indeed accounts for virtually all of their behaviors and actions. Our cat is a lady with two gay dads, so we're sort of the gender inverse of the situation in the book. I'm not sure that Holiday's life story would mirror Tom Jones's exactly, but it's fun to think about. I read a few of the chapters to Holiday one night and she seemed to grow extra-affection toward me as I read them. She even licked my nose! So there must be something magical about the book.
I'm definitely going to read more Sarton soon. Next on my list is Plant Dreaming Deep. Can't wait!