Cat Brushing
a dazzling short story collection about thirteen older women
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDGE HILL SHORT STORY PRIZE
'Sensual, spiky, tender and utterly original' Pandora Sykes
'A fierce and fascinating debut' Lily King
I was told of an older woman who was asked by her granddaughter, 'Granny, when was the happiest time of your life?'
'I don't know,' she replied, 'I may not have had it yet.'
The stories found in this collection explore the worlds of thirteen older women, reframing their intellectual and emotional lives in intimate vignettes that will shock and comfort in equal measure. In elegant prose Jane Campbell ignites the voices of women who are fighting to live on their own terms, energised by the stuff of human living: a need for companionship, attachments to love-objects, freedoms, integrity and sense of self. Cat Brushing confronts the tragic misconceptions of ageing showing older women to be nothing less than courageous, fearless and defiant in the face of overwhelming odds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Campbell debuts at 80 with an accomplished collection centering the emotional and psychological lives of the elderly, delivering astute observations and sharp critiques, and restoring agency to characters who are routinely robbed of it. Foregrounding sexuality, "Susan and Miffy" depicts an 86-year-old woman as she develops an attraction to her younger caretaker. ("The lust of an old man is disgusting but the lust of an old woman is worse. Everyone knows that," goes the opening line.) In the title story, the narrator contemplates the dispossession "of rights, of respect, of desire" while fearing her son is going to take away her beloved cat. Some of the stories take on a sci-fi tinge, as in "Schopenhauer and I," wherein a character is given a robot to ward off loneliness and help her with daily tasks—and surveil her every move. While the plots are sometimes too heavily reliant on coincidence, as in "Lacrimae Rerum," when a woman happens upon her long-ago ex-boyfriend's funeral, and occasionally employ choppy dialogue ("I am leaving you. Our relationship is over. I am in love with Hils. I thought you knew. Everyone else knows"), Campbell succeeds in portraying the characters' complex inner lives. Ripe with sensuality, this is full of vivid portraits.
