Reviews for this week include a feline focus in Syou Ishida’s “We’ll Prescribe You a Cat” and “Open Throat” by Henry Hoke.
The Sunday Books section is edited by Vanessa Sekinger
WE’LL PRESCRIBE YOU A CAT
by Syou Ishida
Published by Berkley (September 3, 2024)
Hardcover $22.50
Audiobook $14.99
Reviewed by Penny A Parrish
On the way to my friend’s apartment in Paris, I was surprised to find a “cat café.” It’s a place where you can have a cup of coffee or tea and spend time petting one of the several cats who live there. And I remember a hotel in Minnesota where you get a cat that spends the night with you when you book a room. Don’t even get me going on cat videos on the internet!
So cats are everywhere. In this quirky little book, we meet five people in Kyoto who are facing difficult situations in life. One is a man who is constantly belittled by his arrogant boss. Another is a young girl who is trying to navigate the problem of “cliques” in school. One is a geisha whose cat escaped from a window and never returned. The other two are also facing problems.
Word of mouth sends them to a special clinic. It’s supposedly a mental health office that is on the fifth floor of a dark building at the end of an alley. When our unhappy characters find the Kokuro Clinic for the Soul, they are met by a surly receptionist and sent in immediately to see the doctor. He listens to their problems and prescribes them a cat. The critter is brought to the visitor in a carrier, and a bag of food and instructions are handed out as the person leaves…totally confused and carrying a cat. The prescription is usually for a few days or two weeks, then the cat is to be returned.
Of course, the animals change the lives of their people. Some of the cats are cuddly, some little terrors, and others arrogant. But all of these people, who did not have cats in their lives, are changed by having this odd prescription.
I liked the concept of the book better than the actual reading. The writing is quite stilted, and knowledge of Japanese customs and etiquette would be helpful. The story brings in the supernatural and readers have to suspend belief at times to follow along.
The book, which is a best-seller in Japan, does capture the bond between people and cats. My house lacks felines right now after I had to put lovely Sweet P down almost a year ago. I am sure others will come along in the near future. I don’t need a prescription to know that they bring joy and love (and a few furballs) to a home.
Penny A Parrish is a long-time book reviewer and artist. Learn more about her by visiting her page at Brush Strokes Gallery, which is in downtown Fredericksburg.
OPEN THROAT
by Henry Hoke
Published by MCD (June 6, 2023)
Hardcover $12.50
Audiobook $14.99
Reviewed by Drew Gallagher
Though Henry Hoke’s Open Throat was published nearly seven months ago, it showed up on a number of “Best of” lists at year’s end, so I figured I could convince my editor of its relevance beyond the fact that it is the story of a gay mountain lion living in California that needs to be shared in the FXBG Advance book reviews if for no other reason than to flaunt our willingness to review books with LBGTQ themes among the animal kingdom.
The publisher promotes Open Throat as a novel (with a helpful reminder on the front cover), but as I read it on its very small pages I had the impression that it was more of a long poem. This certainly does not detract from the merits of the book, and since it is being told/written by a mountain lion, the form makes more sense and when would a mountain lion have ever learned how to punctuate? It is indeed the slenderest of novels and one that can be consumed in one sitting. It is in fact much too slender to catch the interest of our protagonist mountain lion if the novel was a person to be viewed as potential prey.
The narrator’s habitat in the Hollywood Hills is shrinking, and his increased interactions with humans are becoming problematic especially when hikers stop to urinate on him in his daytime hiding place. He is, however, both a fair and relatively lazy beast, so the hiker gets away with nothing more than an increase in blood pressure and a good story to tell at the coffee bar. The mountain lion is also a fair judge of the world, and when he sees some of the city’s homeless population living in tents, he feels sorry for them without quite understanding why they live in tents when he has seen some of the large houses that other humans live in. He sees excess through his wary eyes.
The sharing of the mountain lion’s life in this snapshot of a few days may be off-putting to some readers because it lacks structure and narrative momentum, but this is the kind of book that allows English majors to fly their freak flags high and with pride. Open Throat is an allegory and a satire all rolled into one while lending itself to layers of dissection and classroom discussion. It is unique in both its theme and its presentation and should allow even the weakest zebra in book clubs an opportunity to finish the book and contribute something to the evening beyond Pepperidge Farms cookies. There is a lot to consider in Open Throat but when you introduce a mountain lion in Act 1, you know that nature will always win over nurture.
(Funny aside: I was going to mention that the book was so slender there couldn’t possibly be an audiobook version, but, of course, there is an audiobook version of everything these days. The funny part is that the audiobook is narrated by Pete Cross who also provided narration for Moby Dick. The two works do feature mammals, but I certainly hope he got paid more for Moby Dick.)
Drew Gallagher is a freelance writer residing in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is the second-most-prolific book reviewer and first video book reviewer in the 137-year history of the Free Lance-Star Newspaper. He aspires to be the second-most-prolific book reviewer in the history of FXBG Advance and is also a founding member of Dads for Puppies.
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