Arts :: Books
Out in print by Twofer Tuesday Jewell
Bay Windows ContributorWednesday Jan 23, 2008
Learning Curve
Rachel Spangler
Bold Strokes Books
Hello, I am Twofer and I am orange and I am a cat. My human has been leaving book pages in my litter box. At first I thought he was being thrifty, but then he began dropping hints about how Rita Mae Brown’s cat writes mystery novels, and wondering aloud why some cats can pay the mortgage while others just throw up on the comforter. He said it in a really sweet tone in that annoying way humans do like you don’t understand what they’re saying. So I thought maybe I could write some book reviews for him, though it sounds like a lot of effort. "Most of these writers don’t make much effort anyway," he said. One of those creepy moments when it seems like he’s reading your mind. My human can really be quite perceptive, though he never seems to pick up when I’m thinking another can of Fancy Feast would really hit the spot. You could die of starvation around here, I swear. And every time I ask for a refill he picks me up, calls me lazy pumpkin belly, then says I’m too heavy and puts me down. Well, I’ve already finished one book review, so who’s lazy now? I think I’ll celebrate with a nap on the bathroom rug.
Final Curtain
Richard Tyler Jordan
Kensington Press
You know how sometimes you’re cleaning your butt and it tastes weird but you just keep going anyway? That’s what reading this book was like. I know it’s supposed to be funny but still, there’s something off about it, like the author thought AbFab was a touching family drama. It’s about a fading but glamorous actress who lives in a glamorous mansion with her glamorous son and glamorous maid and drives in her glamorous car to a glamorous theater to glamorously rehearse in a regional theater production of Mame and glamorously solve a glamorous murder mystery. If you know what Mame is, you might be the target audience for this book: Queens of a certain age, let us say. I’m practically a kitten, but even I know from watching Nick at Nite (my human has an un-glamorous, if not disturbing, fixation on Uncle Joey from Full House) that this book is about 15 years out of sync. And the police in this book are about 15 IQ points short of average, since they need a boozy broad to solve the crime. If they had some cats on the job it all would have been wrapped up in no time. But if the jacket blurb - "Carol Burnett meets Murder, She Wrote" - makes you drop your Geritol in glee, maybe you’ll like this book.
The Purr-fect Murder
Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown
Bantam Books
I don’t mean to sound like I have internalized felinophobia or anything, but a book about clever animals who have conversations and solve puzzles sounds more like a children’s story than something for adults. But this one also has murders and an abortion clinic, so like Mary Poppins, it’s hard to say what age group it’s for. But it’s definitely a bedtime story. I napped a lot between chapters. Not that this book is boring exactly, it’s just that there’s something so bland and comforting about it. Oh sure, some people die and stuff, but there’s not much sense of menace. It’s set in a wealthy little town in Virginia where it seems everyone owns horses and is building McMansions and throwing charity balls. And everyone is so darn nice! Only two characters are slightly unlikable, and one of them gets murdered. Two guesses who the murderer is. It’s kind of a wonder that the lead character needs her two cats and stupid dog to help her out. Maybe she, too, was lulled by the book’s pace and simplistic style. (The Browns seem to have anticipated that readers would check out for pages at a time; they spend a lot of time explaining and repeating.) My one complaint about this soothing experience is that the cats should have had a bigger role. Rita Mae must have written most of this book. A cat could do better.
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