Longish first novel about a magical world where cats change to people and back again, from a veteran children's author. In 1957 San Francisco, successful painter Braden West mourns the recent death of his wife, Alice. He has an important show coming up but is too depressed to work. Meanwhile, he's mysteriously drawn, as was his wife, to a vivid sculpture of cats carved into the door of his house—a sculpture that turns out to be the portal into the cat world, through which he is drawn. But the bulk of the story is given over to 17-year-old Melissa, a farm girl and then a scullery maid, whose real heritage as the ``Queen of faerie'' has been hidden from her through black magic. So off she goes on a perilous, not very original quest. As in fairy tale, there's a wicked queen, who at one point turns Melissa into a tiny calico cat. West joins Melissa in their quest, and they fall in love, a subplot with all the variety of a genre romance. And, of course, West has found his Alice again, more or less. Murphy is often lyrical, but she leans too heavily on the conventions laid down by C.S. Lewis, Anne McCaffrey, and Andre Norton. The most interesting writing here is in fact the cat lore, which Murphy seems to know everything there is to know about and which she associates with what might be called the archetypal female. The interweaving between real and fantasy worlds is well done; the implied notion, intriguing if arguable, is that women are like cats inside—cool, independent, and a bit mystical. Murphy needs to leave her mentors behind, and the love story's a trifle soggy. But, still, she's a writer to watch.
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-451-45146-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: ROC/Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992
Moorcock's latest metamorphic, calculated, gnomic, self- referential venture into the ``multiverse'' completes the trilogy of Blood (1995) and Fabulous Harbors (1997). The chief character and narrator here is Rose von Bek, nÇe Moorcock (it's an ``autobiographical story,'' the author explains helpfully), who, born during the London Blitz, becomes a highwayman to defy the oppressive Universal Transport Company before discovering the doorway to the multiverse—and thence the impending war between the Singularity and the Chaos Engineers that threatens not only the First and Second Ethers but creation itself. Endlessly reinventive, purposefully bewildering, unquantifiable, and elusive—typically Moorcock, in fact. Your move.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-380-97597-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1997
James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Cat, though in a vaguely realistic vein that avoids heavy sentimentality. This debut by a food and wine writer from Philadelphia who has worked as a chef, bartender, merchant seaman, and college professor follows the nameless narrator when, one cold day, he finds a newborn kitten shivering on his doorstep and takes it in. Gradually he learns to appeal to the cat by various ruses, so that the pet- in-training soon responds duly to its name (Spike) and sidles up to its new owner's leg. As a none-too-successful painter, the narrator has the requisite sexy girlfriend whom he can't quite hang on to and who leaves him time and again, only to return when she loses interest in whatever guy has replaced him. Then he meets a weight- challenged girl who, despite chubby arms, has a certain attractiveness—but clearly is not the kind of sexy beauty who can keep on winding him around her little finger. Even so, he exercises his outstanding cooking smarts and explains to her how he ``trained'' Spike largely by allowing the cat to train him. She too learns how to make Spike respond. When the girl at last asks if she can leave the digs she shares with a friend and move in with him, he hesitates. Okay, she says, I'll leave you alone for four days and come back at noon on Saturday. If you're here, I'll stay. If not, I'll say goodbye to the cat and leave. Then the sexy girl calls for a date. Come Saturday morning, though, Spike's paw is run over by a car and the narrator must race to a vet. Meanwhile, he does leave his door unlocked. . . . No tears, only mild uplift, and just the right size for Bridges of Madison County folks.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-019105-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1997
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