News update: Cats, though convenient to blame for household mishaps, are completely innocent (if that's possible) in the recent deaths of thousands of blackbirds. Most likely cause: high-grade fireworks that panicked clustered hordes of birds. According to a report by Alisa Opar for Audubon, summer fireworks do not pose that sort of threat because by then birds have dispersed to nesting sites.
(Cat found in snowbank, recovering from frostbite)
The Sylvester-Tweety Bird trope: birds are often innocent victims and cats scheming villains. Jonathan Franzen in his novel Freedom presents outdoor cats as a high-impact threat to declining songbird species. One character sees cats as the “sociopaths of the pet world” while another character, promiscuous and self-absorbed, has a name that sounds like “cats.” This is not the novel for those who find delight in the allure of the feline. Instead, they might turn to the memoir described below.
Vicki Myron with Bret Witter, Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2008). 277 pgs.
Talking about animals is a lot like social drinking. It creates opportunities for conversation and confession that might not otherwise occur. The tongue becomes a little looser, a bond forms where one had seemed unlikely, sticky topics arise—illness, divorce, job loss. All leavened by the antics of animal that won’t quite fit the mold of a good (and dull) pet.
Vicki Myron’s memoir Dewey, first released several years ago, follows the life of a library cat who arrived on a subzero winter day through the book drop. It offers a much kinder view of the species than Franzen’s novel Freedom, though Dewey does not take on issues like the spread of feral colonies. Like many animal tales, this is one of recovery. We know the freezing kitten will be rescued, and we know he will make peoples’ lives better: it’s the how-it-felt that matters.
Unwanted animals, like the tiny kitten dumped down the chute, are often overlooked. Single women with health problems and a modest job title (like Myron) are overlooked. Even a whole state can be overlooked, like Iowa. I lived in northeast Iowa for a few years (the book is set in a different corner) and moved from there to Ohio. When I announced that move via email and snail mail, friends “on the coasts” were baffled: “Don’t you live there already?” Iowa, Ohio, Idaho—the Big Vowel States. As a nation, we take Iowa, and all the food it produces, for granted. Dewey Readmore Books, the orange rescue cat, allows Myron to challenge others’ provincialism by giving an insider’s view of small town life in a region dominated by big agriculture. (She may get smug at times, but this is a book about a cat so some smugness should be expected.) Before Michael Pollan’s long rant against mass-produced corn as the base of food production in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, there was the 1980s farm crisis, and this is central to the Dewey plot. (Pollan would be sympathetic to many who lost land and a living then since small farms being absorbed into fewer factory types was part of the cause.) Celebrity Farm Aid concerts couldn’t save everyone (see http://www.farmaid.org/site/c.qlI5IhNVJsE/b.5843455/k.2CCD/Farm_Aid_25.htm). People seemed to dissolve. As Myron writes,
One boy wore his old coat from the previous winter. His mother stopped wearing her makeup and, eventually, her jewelry. The boy loved Dewey; he clung to Dewey like a true friend; and his mother never stopped smiling when she saw them together. Then around October, the boy and his mother stopped coming to the library. (68)
Dewey, exceptionally extroverted and calm for a cat, became a steady, reassuring presence. Much of his life was public, and his library role got the attention of journalists and filmmakers, including a filmmaker from Japan. But he also provided more intimate comfort. After a double mastectomy, Myron felt soothed by his affection: “That hollow, sore, scraped-out feeling was always with me, every minute, but sometimes the pain would wash over me so suddenly and so savagely that I would drop to the floor. [. . .]the library could run without me, but I wasn’t sure I could run without it. The routine. The company. The feeling of accomplishment. And most of all, Dewey.” (191)
This book is balanced, well-written, and friendly, and does not make claims to the Pantheon (another contrast to Franzen). The endnotes imply that Myron was approached about the possibility of a book—I speculate the agent was looking for something to ride the Marley and Me wave. Dewey, though lively and responsive, does not match Marley of Grogan’s memoir as the genius of mischief and the unexpected. Grogan, a professional writer, tells a great cock-eyed story. But Myron’s book provides insight into being in “fly-over” country. Many animal advocates decry factory farming, and while many Iowa agricultural people may disagree with many animal-rights premises, there is no doubt that there is a human cost as well.
Many Dewey readers commented online that they were moved to tears—animal salvation stories often have that effect. I remained dry-eyed, probably because I lack a soul. But are people always “saved” by closeness to an animal? I’ll return to that question in upcoming discussions of Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals by Hal Herzog and Saved: Rescued Animals and the Lives They Transform by Karin Winegar and Judy Olausen.
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