A Feline Focuses on Fiction in the Fall

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“Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel The Autumn of the Patriarch is not about me but should be,” says Misty the cat during one of his leashed walks. (Photo by Laurel Cummins.)

Misty the cat here, back for my every-two-month guest litterbox…um…literature post as autumn leaves turn from John Green to Tommy Orange to Rita Mae Brown. Prominent authors don’t grow on trees? Perhaps they do.

Speaking of prominent authors, today is the birthday of the late Anne Rice. She wrote many novels starring vampires, which are mythical undead creatures who rise from the grave at night to drink the blood of the living but never show up at my weekly book club gatherings. Perhaps I’m serving the wrong drinks. 

What have I, Misty the cat, been reading lately? The edition of Breakfast at Tiffany’s I borrowed from the library last month included a second Truman Capote novel. I was hoping that bonus book would be Lunch at Burger King, Dinner at Katz’s Delicatessen, or Midnight Snack at the Nearest Dumpster, but it turned out to be Other Voices, Other Rooms. I tried to stay with OVOR, but gave up after too many pages of too much racial stereotyping. Besides, I didn’t like what Holly Golightly did to one of my fellow felines at the end of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. So, I’ll be rereading Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo to fine-tune my vengeful mood – and to learn why The Count moved from Sesame Street to Monte Cristo.

Capote may not have liked it, but Dumas was of part-African descent – as were the writers Colette and Alexander Pushkin, among others. Colette’s most-famous novel was Gigi (despite it hardly being her best book) while Pushkin’s masterpiece was Eugene Onegin. The title of that novel-in-verse has the same initials as Eggy Omelet, which I suspect some people order for breakfast at Tiffany’s.

I’m currently reading Salley Vickers’ The Cleaner of Chartres, and it’s always nice when a working-class character (in this case Agnes Morel) stars in a novel. Of course, many working-class people sadly get laid off – even as the “e” in “Salley” has so far escaped that downsizing fate.

Getting back to the current season of autumn, my thoughts turn to “The Fall of the House of Usher” – one of Edgar Allan Poe’s quartet of tales that also includes “The Winter of the House of Usher,” “The Spring of the House of Usher,” and “I, E.A. Poe, Might Be Dead But Stop Creating Fake Titles for My Short Stories.”

Dave will respond to comments while I, Misty the cat, read “The Summer of the House of Usher.”

Misty the cat asks: “Am I ‘Up the Down Staircase’ or up the up staircase?”

I and Dave’s comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for the book features a talking cat: 🙂 (Not Dave’s voice. 🙂 )

Dave is also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more, including many encounters with celebrities.

In addition to this weekly blog, Dave writes the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece – which includes mentions of many famous plays — is here.

30 thoughts on “A Feline Focuses on Fiction in the Fall”

  1. Misty, I like the directness of your reviews. I think the only Truman Capote I read was “In Cold Blood” and I didn’t sleep for days. So that was enough of his writing for me! (K)

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  2. Great post, Misty, nicely done. I like the way you have Dave handle the replies. I kinda wish I had someone to do that sometimes. Do you rent him out?

    Poe might no like you’re revealing the other volumes of that story, but I think there was a spring involved. It fed the lake the house fell into.

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  4. Oh, Misty. You are so wry and funny! Thank you for the laugh out loud moment when I read your Capote quip. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” seriously SHOULD’VE been followed by your thoughtful ideas. Compelling works yet to be written! “Lunch at Burger King” and “Midnight Snack at the Nearest Dumpster” especially. I’m with you!
    ❤️😎❤️

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  5. Have not read a Truman Capote book. (One of those authors who I felt I probably should read, you know famous and such)

    Anne Rice I did take to (and enjoyed).

    Hey, unexpected hazard to such a topic for a post… the calendar (when I mentioned reading Interview… not a friendly informant)

    of course, Edgar A… who didn’t enjoy his work. (fave: ‘The Bells’)

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    • Thank you, Clark!

      Impossible to get to every author. 🙂

      I liked the one novel I’ve read by Anne Rice.

      And, yes, Edgar Allan Poe is almost always a riveting read for almost everyone. His memorable short stories and excellent poetry. I like “The Bells,” too, and also like the Phil Ochs song based on that poem.

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    • Thank you, Rosaliene! That does seem to be one of Misty’s better photos. (He almost always has a stern/serious/on-alert look when outside.)

      I can take or leave vampire stories myself; some are of course better than others. “…blood is not on my list of favorite drinks” — ha ha! 😂 I’m with you on that. 🙂

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  7. Thanks for the comic relief, Misty! M’self, I wouldn’t be too eager to have vampires show up a your book club. As far as Truman Capote goes, just because someone is a good writer doesn’t mean he’s a good human being.

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    • Thank you, Liz! Misty appreciates the praise, and the fact that “comic relief” has the same first letters as “cat raconteur.” 🙂 And — ha! 😂 — I suppose vampires are indeed not the ideal guests. (Why am I thinking of the U2 song “Sunday Bloody Sunday”? 🤔 )

      Great point about Truman Capote! I overall liked “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” despite the disturbing way some stuff was depicted in it. “Other Voices, Other Rooms” did also seem to have a good story going, but the racial stereotyping (and the animal cruelty) drove me away. Then again, it was a 1940s novel, so the upfront racism was “of its time” — though we’re of course also seeing plenty of it in the 21st-century Trump regime.

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  8. Misty, you have created an excellent post with this literary autumn. I loved the way you moved through the season using all those wonderfully improbable connections. You had me at Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. Reading it was a very important experience for me because it was the first time I had read a large narrative poem translated from another language. How was anyone able to translate a poem from another language and still keep it as a poem? I knew I was hearing Pushkin through another voice, yet the movement of the poem still came through. So thank you, Misty. Your autumn wanderings sent me back to one of the books that changed the way I read.

    “But whom to love?
    To trust and treasure?
    Who won’t betray us in the end?
    And who’ll be kind enough to measure
    Our words and deeds as we intend?”
    Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin

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    • Thank you, Ada! A nice coincidence that Misty named two writers that you and your husband are big fans of! The only Anne Rice novel I’ve read is “The Witching Hour,” which I liked a lot despite feeling it could have been a couple hundred pages shorter. But I’ve read almost every Poe story and poem, as well as his one novel. Perhaps I should try “Interview With the Vampire”!

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    • Thank you, Audrey! The cooler fall weather has certainly invigorated the 11-year-old Misty. 🙂 Those steps lead from the side door of the apartment-complex garage, where Misty got to sniff some car tires. 🙂

      Ha! 😂 “The Count of Monte Cristo” certainly IS big enough to make for a formidable pillow. And I’m not remembering any cats in that novel, either.

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  12. Hey, Misty, good to see you again, looking in fine feline fettle in that light-blue coat which matches your own Misty grey so well. Beautiful alliteration in the title of your post, even if some of your reading matter wasn’t half so beautiful. I never liked that Holly Golightly, who couldn’t even be bothered to find out the name of the friendly feline who she betrayed. Hmm. I’ve since read that he was played in the film by a celebrity cat named Orangey, who apparently was a bit of a moody diva who’d scratch the humans who played supporting actors to him in the fillm. Hopefully Holly came in for a share of his clawmarks. If you’re looking for some seasonally-named books there’s ‘Autumn’ by one Ali Smith, or ‘Drums of Autumn’ by Diana Gabaldon; but frankly, you could do far worse than read my own ‘October Poems’. Nary a leaf in sight, I have to admit, but there is one that mentions cats. Poetry, for a feline surely named for the ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ from ‘Ode to Autumn’ by Keats, has to be a must-read. Enjoy the falling of the year, Misty, and catch you next time; and my regards to Dave too. 🐈🐈🐈

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    • Thank you, Laura, for your great and at-times-quite-comedic comment directed at Misty! 🙂 😂

      I’ve never seen the “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” movie, but I imagine Holly Golightly came off as more sympathetic than in Truman Capote’s novella. As you note, she was not that likable in the book — even as she had a certain eccentric charm and charisma. And, yes, she didn’t do right by that kitty. Interesting to hear about that testy cat performer in the film version.

      Thanks for the mentions of those autumnal novels (I’ve read all of Diana Gabaldon’s addictive “Outlander” books, so I got to “Drums of Autumn”) and the mention of your “October Poems” collection, which I know has received very positive reviews!

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