Being able to communicate with cats would make my life so much easier.
Who wouldn’t want to know when their cats are actually hungry, when the litter box is too dirty to use, or when someone
is not giving kitty enough attention. In
Kimberly Pauley’s new book, Cat Girl’s
Day Off, she explores the life of Natalie Ng, whose ‘Talent’ is being able
to talk to cats.
Set in present day Chicago, Cat
Girl’s Day Off starts off with Natalie and her cat Meep discussing the
Class A Talents of Nat’s family. Dad has super smell, Mom has laser vision and
ability to retain extraneous information; twelve-year-old sister Emmy has the highest
IQ in the Western Hemisphere, and older sister Viv has truth divination,
levitation and X-ray vision. Viv and her dad work at the Bureau of Extrasensory
Regulation and Management (BERM). All Nat can do is talk to cats, a “Class D –
as in totally dumb – talent,” as she puts it. However, Nat’s talent sure comes
in handy when a well known blogger, Easton West, goes missing…and the only one
who can help Nat find her is Easton’s cat, Tiddlywinks.
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| Cover of the book. Image from Facebook. |
Being a huge reader, and a fan of Kimberly Pauley’s Sucks to be Me series, I ordered Cat Girl’s Day Off when Amazon emailed me a recommendation for it.
After finishing the book and absolutely
loving it, I got to interview Kimberly Pauley and pick her brain about Cat Girl’s Day Off!
Cat Girl’s Day Off has a plot line based on Ferris Bueller’s
Day Off, what inspired the Ferris Bueller take?
“Um…my
random brain? Seriously, the original nugget of an idea didn’t have anything to
do with Ferris Bueller or movies or anything. It went through several
iterations until I finally chanced upon the idea of working in Ferris (which is
one of the most awesome movies of all time). Then it really took off,” said
Pauley.
“I
was living in the Chicago suburbs (like Ferris) at the time and knew I wanted
to set the book there and then once I figured out how Nat (the main character)
was going to get pulled into this crazy madcap adventure, the movie led me to
the locations where the action was going to take place. Most of it wound up at
Wrigley Field, but I’d thought about incorporating some of the other movie
locations as well originally.” She said.
I love the idea of “Talents.” Did you always
wish you could understand what cats think?
“The
talent was actually the first thing I had. The original idea was to think up
some “useless” super powers and then go from there. I was thinking about a
whole series of books, each told from a different person’s point of view and
all of them having a really “stupid” power. I would actually love to be able to
talk to cats. I think they’d have lots of things to say about…well, about
everything,” Pauley said.
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| My cat Pearl wishes she could hang out with Meep, Rufus and PD! |
In Cat
Girl’s Day Off because Nat can talk to cats, the readers learn that the
cats have an actual name, and the name given to them by their people. Readers
learn that Easton’s cat, Tiddlywinks, is really named Rufus Brutus the Third.
How did you come up with the idea of cats being
called a name by their person, but having a different name – such as
Tiddlywinks being Rufus Brutus the Third?
“I
can’t say I came up with that originally. It was T.S. Eliot that said that cats
had three names: one everyday name, one particular/peculiar name and lastly:
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover -
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of
his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.
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| Image from Facebook. |
That’s
from the poem The Naming of Cats from Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. You
know the Broadway play Cats? It’s based on that collection of poetry. Definitely
worth a read for cat lovers,” said Pauley.
The main cats in the book, Meep, Rufus and Purr
Daddy always have great, witty banter between them. Did you find it hard to
write in the voice of the cats? Is there anything you did to prepare to write
in their voices?
“Perhaps sadly (just ask my husband), I had no
trouble been cat-snarky. I’m probably part cat myself,” she said. No worries Kimberly, we all like to think
we know what our cats would say if they could talk!
It seems that all authors put a part of
themselves in their books, in which character do you most identify yourself?
Well,
like Nat, I am also half-Chinese. And short. And a bit quirky. So probably her.
Though I do SO love Oscar. He’s based on a few friends of mine that I knew in
high school and college. Some people will probably think he’s a bit over the
top, but he’s actually pretty tame compared to some of the friends I had…
Is there a question that you’ve wanted
to be asked in interviews, but have never been asked before?
Yes. “Would you like to have dinner with Johnny Depp?” I’m sure you
can guess what the answer to that question would be.
Only kind of kidding…always seemed like he would be an interesting
guy to talk with (at least based on his choice of movie roles and you gotta
love a guy who’s not afraid of eyeliner and wears so many hats so well). Though
I did have dinner once with Harry Harrison (one of the grand masters of science
fiction) at a convention and I’d love to do that again. He’s
awesome.
This review is solely my opinion. I was not given a copy of this book to review, but did so of my own accord.
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