Cat

By: Laer, Rebecca Van

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Rebecca van Laer and her partner purchase a home and move in with their senior cats, Toby and Gus. Their loved ones see this as a step toward an inevitable future-first comes the house, then a dog, then a child. But what if they are just cat people?

Moving between memoir, philosophy, and pop culture, Cat is a playful and tender meditation on cats and their people. Van Laer considers cats' role in her personal narrative, where they are mascots of laziness and lawlessness, and in cultural narratives, where they appear as feminine, anarchic, and maladapted, especially in comparison to dogs.

From the stereotype of the 'crazy cat lady' to the joy of cat memes to the grief of pet loss, van Laer demonstrates that the cat-person relationship is free of the discipline and dependence required by parenting (and dog-parenting), creating a less hierarchical intimacy that offers a different model for love.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0DWDQJQS5
• ISBN13: 9798765114629
• Release Date: October 2025
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.6" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

One of the very best of this series

The writing in this Object Lesson book is simply among the best in the series. It is a seamless blend of the personal and scholarly - a balance that is so hard to achieve. Think of Mary Roach at her best - that is what this book offers.