John Cech

While being dragged around the Atlantic Ocean by a huge fish, an adventuresome cat, whose life bears an amazing resemblence to that of Ernest Hemingway, recalls the events of his previous eight existences.

The Southernmost Cat

Sarah Sammis

When I was interning, Tuesdays and Thursdays were my lunch out with Harriet and Ian right after my day ended. The day that Pirate King by Laurie R. King came out, happened to be one of those days. As I'd been waiting a year for the book's release, I took Harriet with me to the Bookshop on B Street. As I was getting a book, so could she, her choice.

Harriet has this wonderful, karma-driven knack for finding unusual and delightful books. Her choice, by the cover art, the title and by reading the first paragraph as The Southernmost Cat by John Cech.

The book opens with a cat fishing off the coast of the southernmost point of the southernmost state and having no luck at it. Now the poetically veiled reference to the Florida Keys should have been a good clue. The cat being proud of his six toes on every paw should have been another.

But it took me a while to finally realize what was going on.

And that's when I burst out laughing maniacally, confusing both children during story time. See, it's a feline retelling of Old Man and the Sea. To make things even sillier there are some overt references to Moby Dick.

The book closes with a portrait of the cat with his friends. There's lots of name dropping here as well as a chart showing which cat is drawn and named for which famous artist or author. Because of all these classic literature and art references, the book took a good half an hour to read for all the stopping and explaining I was doing.

Now I think it's time to re-read Old Man and the Sea and Moby Dick.