gway Kittens and Other Feline Fancies and Fantasies
BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY A. R. MORLAN
The Amulet: A Novel of Horror
The Chimera and the Shadowfox Griefer and Other Curious People
Dark Journey: A Novel of Horror
Ewerton Death Trip: A Walk Through the Dark Side of Town
The Fold-O-Rama Wars at the Blue Moon Roach Hotel and Other Colorful Tales of Transformation and Tattoos
The Hemingway Kittens and Other Feline Fancies and Fantasies
Of Vampires & Gentlemen: Tales of Erotic Horror
’Rillas and Other Science Fiction Stories
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1988, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2011, 2013 by A. R. Morlan
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
To Mary Wickizer Burgess
For all her extraordinary work on this volume—this book wouldn’t exist without her many, many hours of hard work and dedication to another’s dream— I cannot thank you enough!
AND
For My Cats, Past, Present, and Even Future—
You keep me going, you’ve saved my life, and you’ve become my life…
INTRODUCTION
A CAT OF NINE TALES
My very dear late friend, Ardath Mayhar, was one of those individuals who not only nurtured within her an immense literary talent that found expression in her own novels, stories, and poems, but also somehow managed to act as a catalyst for other voices just emerging from their creative chrysalides. She accomplished this partly by providing, in her last decades, private professional editorial advice for a variety of old and new writers.
Hence, when David Feintuch was trying to shape his first novel, Midshipman’s Hope, into something that might be publishable, she was able to tender some suggestions that helped move that project forward to a successful conclusion.
From my own dealings with her, it was clear that she knew just what to say to the wide range of correspondents and friends who brought so many literary gifts to lay at her feet. She helped make their work better. She helped make them better. She was a positive force who accomplished a great deal of good from her self-built metal house in the middle of the East Texas muddle from which she came.
I have no idea how many artists Ardath influenced, but the number seems to grow with my knowledge of the field, with the expansion of my own network of authors and agents and editors.
A.R. Morlan was one of her friends and colleagues way back when, long before I’d encountered either writer—and now I’m privileged to count “A.R.” among my own dear friends.
This is a woman of enormous talent, whose fiction is utterly without compare among modern American masters. She sees things that no one else sees, she finds connections that no one else has ever imagined, and she makes her prose sing and vibrate with a barely constrained but firmly disciplined power, with immense feeling, with great sympathy for the all-too-human characters who people her literary worlds.
She is, in my estimation, one of those authors who will someday, long after she and I are both gone, be “discovered” by the critics, and acclaimed as a modern master of the short story form. Dissertations will be written about her work, and pundits will nod their heads in affirmation, muttering “Yes, yes.” But all that future discussion and all that future popularity will not penetrate even a millimeter into the complexity of her work, the sheer scope and breadth and depth of it. Nor should it.
This collection includes some of my favorite Morlan tales—only because both Mary and I are, quite simply, “animal crackers”—just like A.R. We live for our critters, who return our love with a devotion that none of us can ever imagine. Both cats and dogs have adapted themselves symbiotically to human beings, and one wonders sometimes, in watching them cavort for us, in experiencing the sheer joy of their existence, who is the master here—and who the mastered. Perhaps it signifieth not.
A.R.’s love for her cats is evident in her work—and in her life. Her love for her writing is equally clear. This is what she was meant to do—always. This is who she is—always. Through adversity, through experiences that would have destroying a lesser individual, through pain and sorrow and way too much travail, she has persevered; and what you read in this little volume of tales, what you see in her other collections that Mary and I have edited, synthesizes the essence of that large spirit that has somehow survived the Trials of Job.
I think her cats did it. I really do. I think they appeared to provide her with just what she needed. Alas, Ardath Mayhar is no longer with us to give us solace and advice and love. She did what she needed to do—and then she left her corpus of work to remind us of what we needed to do.
But it was the cats, the spirits of all the writers and creative folk who’ve ever lived, who yet remain. Who is the master? Who is the mastered?
Is it the cat of nine tales? Mirabile dictu!
—Robert Reginald,
June 6, 2013
FOREWORD
I’ve noticed that when it comes to writers, there are two basic “types” (in the U.S., at least)—“Hemingway writers” and “Fitzgerald writers.” Totally different stylistic approaches, completely incompatible mindsets. Concise, literal, muscular writing vs. slightly rambling, idealized, somewhat feminine prose (and by feminine, I am referring to common traits associated with women in general—increased verbosity, reliance on feelings to establish mood, and so on—not necessarily one’s gender per se). These two “types” don’t make for good co-writers, as I’ve discovered to my chagrin (and not to mention considerable time wasted on trying to make the would-be partnership work!). Nor do they tend to recommend other writers whose work doesn’t in some way mirror or mimic their preferred stylistic model. (Which often leaves us “Fitzgerald” types out in the cold when it comes time to get endorsed by the more prevalent “Hemingway” followers!)
I suppose one could compare this schism to the one of “cat people” vs. “dog people”—granted, many folks like both equally, but somewhere down the line, everyone has a favorite…and just as the works of Mr. Hemingway and Mr. Fitzgerald often appear in the same libraries, so do cats and dogs, but—if one has to make a choice between one or the other, not both, that’s when you find out what sort of person one is.
All my life I’ve been a cat person, and despite the title of this collection (and the story which inspired it), I’m also very much a Fitzgerald writer. Granted, Fitzgerald didn’t have cats (he was a dog person), and Hemingway did have them, often in great numbers down in Florida; but I’ve never been a major fan of his work, despite having read much of it in college English courses (the head English professor of my now defunct college—who recently became defunct himself—was vehemently anti-Fitzgerald, calling him “minor” and “not worth studying,” despite the protests of his largely female students, who kept begging him to include at least one Fitzgerald novel in his American Novels course)…and I honestly can say, I cannot remember anything from any of Hemingway’s books or short stories! But Fitzgerald—now his prose spoke to me. Just as cats have always “spoken” to me…sometimes positively, sometimes not. But even though not all my cat relationships have ended well, all have been memorable. I hope at least some of these stories might also “speak” to my readers.…
—A. R. Morland & Cats
May, 2013
THE HEMINGWAY KITTENS
Some people may say that cats and bookstores don’t mix, that small beasts with claws and the occasional ability to spray have no place among shelved books which reach from the floor to near-ceiling…but answer me, is there anything more appealing than the sight of a cat curled up next to an opened book? With is softly pointed chin resting on the creamy-white printed pages?