Waltzing the Cat

by Pam Houston

Book Overview

In this remarkable follow-up to the best-selling Cowboys Are My Weakness, Pam Houston traces the story of peripatetic photographer Lucy O'Rourke through eleven linked fictions "full of memorable... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671026372
• ISBN13: 9780671026370
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Washington Square Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Are we reading the same book?

I'm puzzled by the reviewers that swooned over "Cowboys are my Weakness" and hate this current title. "Cowboys," written by Houston in her late 20s, are stories by someone who's just found her voice and is trying it out. They are light stories, but Houston is hiding her feelings behind the adventures themselves. In "Waltzing the Cat," the author is ten years older with a lot of introspection (and apparently good psychotherapy) under her belt. We still get some of the amazing adventures, but we also get to see Houston develop emotionall, through her alter ego/main character Lucy. It's more about how these adventures affect her, what memories they dredge up, what she learns from them. Houston's style has evolved into an unusual mix between the classic "women's confessional" and terse, Hemmingway-ish Western stories. It works, and it works beautifully. You must understand that THIS BOOK IS NOT A NOVEL, but a set of related short stories that occur only roughly in chronological order, NOT chapters. Other reviewers found the book "disjointed," I myself did not. Because they are separate stories, I didn't find it odd that the character felt differently, even contradictory, about things at different time and in different stories. I read all three of Houston's books over the weekend, and I can highly recommend all of them, but to me, "Waltzing the Cat" was the best of the three, just nosing out her nonfictional essay collection "A Little More About Me," which in turn just nosed out "Cowboys are my Weakness."

Wonderful stories by a wonderful writer

Pam Houston's "Walzing the Cat" is one of the best books I've read recently, interconnecting stories full of lyrical writing, jolt-you-to-attention insights, and luminous images. The titular story is perfect in every way, an examination of family, death and the horror of conditional love. Another gem is "The Whole Weight of Me" when our heroine jumps into illuminated water and tells us "When I opened by eyes under the surface, I felt like I was swimming in the stars."Yes, the character is searching for love, but she is a thinking woman's heroine -- an artist, philosopher, and wounded but tough bird waiting to take flight. In the end, it's only fair that that flight is solo.A wonderful book... turned me into a Pam Houston fan.

Lucy tries to make sense of life, death and Suzanne the cat.

Lucy is a very real and very loveable heorine, despite of and because of her very human flaws. In this collection of short stories, she tries to make sense of life, death, her childhood, being single in a partnered world, and why Suzanne the cat received more good will--and food--from her parents than she did. My favorite story is the title story: "Waltzing the Cat," where Lucy puzzles out her relationship with her parents after her mother's death. While being uproariously funny, it is at the same time an extremely poignant and moving story. I love Houston's humor and attention to detail.

a book I wish I had written

Pam Houston writes in that imperfect way that achieves near perfection. You know an author is getting to you when the words make you stop and read them again, tasting and feeling them to make sure they are real. Her passage explaining why she stays with a jealous, abusive man rang almost too close to home....after giving her litany of painful reasons, she explains that you should understand where she is coming from... "unless you are lucky, and then you will not." Reading Pam makes me feel as though an old friend is sitting in my bedroom talking to ME, and I realized reading this passage, that I did, unfortunately, understand. Thanks for writing from the heart, and I can't wait to read more!