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“The Cat Who Could Read Backwards” by Lilian Jackson Braun

The Cat Who Could Read Backwards is available at Diesel Ebooks and Amazon.com.

The Cat Who Could Read Backwards is the first novel in the Lillian Jackson Braun “Cat Who…” series and a must for LJB fans. This first novel was published in 1966, forty-odd years before the most recent novel, The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers. As a novel set in the mid-60’s, it very much reflects the times. Anyone who has lived through the mid-‘60s will get a chuckle out an event called a “Happening” and existentialist mentality couched in Hippie lingo.

Here we meet a slightly younger, much poorer Jim Qwilleran who has managed to work his way down the social ladder thanks to a few poor lifestyle choices. He is worlds away from Pickax’s celebrated “Mister Q”. This Qwilleran owns no pets. He has no job. He has no home. All his worldly goods can be packed into two suitcases. And his wife is now his ex-wife.

Once an award-winning Chicago / New York journalist, he admits to having worn out his welcome at several newspapers. He is forced to beg for a job in a small Midwest town at a paper called the “Daily Fluxion”—“Flux” for short, and he is hired only because his best friend is editor of the features department. Forced to accept whatever pays the rent, he ends up, under protest, with a human-interest column for the art beat.

In this pre-Squunk water period, Qwilleran drinks nothing stronger than tomato juice. About mid-novel, his frustration level peaks and he orders a double scotch, but fortunately, we surmise, he gets called away on an assignment before he can drink it. The reader senses that in the past he has been all too familiar with double scotches, which could explain his precipitous drop in social status.

Qwilleran’s fortunes begin to take an upturn when he learns that, in this community, people are more rabid about art than about sports. He begins to hear rumors about warring factions with different attitudes about what constitutes “good art”. We meet the prodigy who has become filthy rich in spite of scathing critical reviews of his work. We meet a female welder with possible lesbian leanings whose nickname is “Butchy”. We meet Nine-Oh, who has changed his name to a number and who specializes in turning garbage into art. These and other members of the town’s quirky art community have a one thing in common: they all despise the Fluxion’s art critic. It appears that the only artists who don’t share this opinion are those whose works appear at an exclusive art gallery. But the director of this gallery may be involved in back-alley dealings, and his wife, an acclaimed artist, may be romantically involved with the art critic.

Then we meet the art critic himself. Qwilleran and George Bonifield Montclemens become instant friends. Out of this friendship comes, for Qwilleran, a place to live—an empty apartment in Montclemens’ building—and a cat named Kao K’o-Kung (after an oriental painter.) Qwilleran grows to like the cat better than Montclemens despite the fact that “KoKo” is just as demanding as his owner.

In this novel, Qwilleran has not one but possibly three murders to solve. Fortunately, he, the cat and the dictionary have joined forces, and it appears that the cat can point out the clues that he, a former crime writer, misses. Qwilleran is so taken with the cat that he begins to eat dinners at home to enjoy Koko’s company. Ms. Braun’s ability to transform Qwilleran from a down-and-out loser to a sympathetic hero with the addition of one Siamese cat explains why the Cat Who… series is so wildly popular. Qwilleran is everyman plus one cat, a combination that is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts.

© 2008 Girlebooks.