Lead Review (The Blanket Cats)

• Book: The Blanket Cats
• Location: Tokyo
• Author: Jesse Kirkwood (Translator), Kiyoshi Shigematsu

Review Author: tripfiction

Tokyo residents can hire a cat for three days from a specialist Tokyo pet shop and the feline arrives with its blanket, which alerts the animal to a temporary change of scene and gives it succour and familiarity whilst out on its mission. The temporary owners will choose its name, too. To be honest, I have never yet met a cat who is totally comfortable with a change of people, name or location but this is fiction and very nice inventive fiction these stories are. And a beautifully designed book cover to boot.

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People have all kinds of reasons for ‘adopting’ a cat for three days, a desire for company, perhaps, or something more specific. The opening story is The Cat Who Sneezed, which is a charming story of how “Anne” joins a childless couple – sneezing away as she does – and how the couple learns to live with the new (but temporary) acquisition. Dialogue between the humans is revitalised and attitudes change.

The Cat in the Passenger Seat is almost a Thelma and Louise escapade. Kuro is an elderly Maine Coon cat who has been retired but Taeko is delighted to have this old black cat once again by her side. An adventure awaits the two of them.

In an apartment block a landlord brings along a cat who is used to flush out any animals illegally living with the residents The Cat No-One Liked. Any hidden animal-companions will, of course, respond to the landlord’s cat in some way as he patrols the building and he will thus be alerted to their presence. And of course The Cat With No Tailfeatures a Manx cat, a breed without a tail. It is rumoured the Manx cats were late joining Noah’s Ark and as the ramp was being raised, it caught the latecomers’ tails and severed them.

This is a delightful selection of stories, beautifully translated and is a great addition the copious cat-themed novels set in Japan.

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