An Unlikely Cat Lady

The title of this entry once described me, but in this case, it’s the name of a book by Nina Malkin.  I thought I should review it now because it’s sitting on my desk, and I’m on a book review roll.

The author of An Unlikely Cat Lady is a cat owner in Brooklyn, NY.  She has two indoor cats, but suddenly notices that a colony of ferals has taken up residence in her neighbourhood.  The colony includes kittens, which she tries unsuccessfully to tame, so she learns about TNR.  Eventually, the author traps, neuters, and returns almost the entire colony at her own expense, and provides food and shelter for them.  While I really admire the author for what she did, some of her attitudes frustrated me.  For one thing, it’s awful to follow along as the cats in the colony wander off and vanish (and assumedly die).  I’m not sure what the author could have done about that, although my opinion was that she could have easily tamed the “feral” kittens if she’d just brought them indoors.  Their mother was stray-but-tame, so I’m sure the kittens (less than eight weeks old when first discovered), could have had a better future if not left outside.  This is probably something you learn with experience, but still, it was sad to keep reading as the window for taming the kittens closed, and they became true feral strays.  Most of the adults were perhaps beyond help (although I inferred that the kittens’ mother was also quite tame), but the kittens could have been given a normal life.  By the time the author decides that she loves one of the kittens so much that she wants it to live inside, the cat is far too old to adjust.

My biggest beef with the book was the author’s hatred of a neighbourhood stray male cat, who she names, “Yeff Smeef”.  Yeff is unneutered, nasty, and probably unhealthy - all descriptions of him suggest that he’s ugly and covered in fight wounds.  While a cat like Yeff would be my pet project (no pun intended), Nina Malkin despises him, chasing him out of her yard, and trying to avoid feeding him.  When she accidentally traps Yeff while doing TNR, she releases him instead of getting him neutered.  This is horribly ironic, given that the point of trapping was to catch a female cat before she could be impregnated by Yeff (the local Lothario).  Yeff always seems frightened and alone when he’s mentioned, and I wanted to reach out and help him myself.  By the end of the book, he’s vanished too, and the author assumes he’s dead.  She actually made plans to trap and neuter Yeff shortly before his disappearance, but she admits that she’s doing it in hopes the neutering clinic will offer to put the cat to sleep instead.

If Nina Malkin had just left out the stuff about Yeff Smeef, I would have enjoyed the book more.  I love dark humour, and don’t even mind the occasional tasteless joke about animals, but I didn’t like reading about someone purposely neglecting an animal need, and enjoying it.  Maybe the author exaggerated her feelings about the cat to make a better story, but it didn’t make it better for me.  If anything, it makes me want to make a donation to a place like Alley Cat Allies, in Yeff Smeef’s memory.  Yeff, if you’d wandered into my yard, I would have tried to save you.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/03 at 12:09 PM

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  1. I haven’t read that book, but you give a great description.
    I have one tame cat and 3 feral cats who all act similarly. The most feral now rolls over to have her tummy rubbed. They all know their names and the names of the others. Three of them (the ferals) have learned to sit and shake paw for treats and one does high five. The youngest was 4 weeks when I took her in and she is very tame but doesn’t like strangers. One feral female had had kittens outside when I took her in (also her kittens- but they have since found other accomodations)- she has become a very affectionate, fun-loving kitty. One feral male I was going to have neutered and release him. He was about 6 mos at time of neutering and when I brought him home, he didn’t want to go back out. He said, “Air- conditioning, filled food dishes, comfy bed and couch… I’m good here.”  He never acted very feral but was the half brother of my most feral female.  If you spend a little time, they are easy to tame. That is sad about the male in the book ... anybody I could catch, have neutered or spayed, and released I did ... it seemed to make the most sense in limiting the population.

    Posted by MargeS  on  04/05  at  03:51 PM
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