A Cat Saves the Day

Three years ago, I reviewed Homer’s Odyssey by Gwen Cooper, the true story of how the author adopted and cared for a blind cat. I just finished reading her latest book, Love Saves the Day. This novel’s story is told, in part, by a cat.

Prudence has brown tiger stripes and white feet. She thinks she knows everything, and after living with Sarah, her “roommate,” she has developed ideas of how humans should interact with cats, and when others besides Sarah don’t act the way she thinks they should, she says they don’t have good manners. Sarah, a former DJ and recording artist who once owned a record store and now works as a typist in various offices, found Prudence at a construction site when she was a kitten, and as she says later in the book, they were meant to find each other.

Prudence is contentedly living with Sarah in her apartment in New York City’s lower east side until one day when Sarah has a heart attack at work and never returns home, leaving Prudence to wonder where she is and go hungry once she runs out of food. A neighbor finally feeds her, and Sarah’s daughter Laura and her husband Josh arrive. Much to Prudence’s horror, they box all Sarah’s possessions and take them and her to their apartment on the upper east side.

This story isn’t just about Prudence. Most of the chapters are in the cat’s point of view, but others tell Laura’s side of the story. Sarah tells her own story in two of the chapters. We get an idea of Sarah’s life as a teen-ager after moving to the city from White Plains and Laura’s life growing up there.

At first, Josh and Laura are distant with the cat. Josh isn’t sure how to treat Prudence, and Laura, still resentful of her mother for the way she grew up, views the cat as another painful reminder of her past. The only reason she agrees to take Prudence is because it is stipulated in her mother’s will. When Josh loses his job with a marketing company due to downsizing, Laura, a lawyer working in a prestigious firm, feels the pressure of being the only breadwinner and worries about money. After looking through Sarah’s old discs and other memorabilia, Josh becomes active in a movement to save the studio where Sarah made her records. Since Laura thinks he should be looking for another job, this causes tension between them, and they each bond with Prudence.

After Sarah relates a shocking incident from the past, we understand why Laura resents her mother and worries about money. Then, Josh and Laura have a huge argument on the day of their wedding anniversary, and Prudence becomes violently ill after eating lilies that were delivered for the occasion. This brings Josh and Laura closer to each other and to Prudence as the book ends.

I downloaded Love Saves the Day from Audible and found the narration excellent. This book isn’t all serious. I had to laugh at the way Prudence perceives things, although she probably wouldn’t have found it funny. She thinks Josh’s computer keyboard is a cat bed and sleeps on it during the day when he’s not home. When Josh vacuums the spare bedroom where the boxes of Sarah’s things are stored, she thinks the vacuum cleaner is a monster about to attack her and the boxes. When Josh tosses a newspaper on the floor in the kitchen after reading it, she attacks it, looking for mice and other rodents, much to Josh and Laura’s amusement. The ruckus Prudence creates when she finds a toy rat in the closet among Sarah’s things is almost too funny. All this, along with the serious stuff, makes this book a worthwhile read.

Besides Love Saves the Day and Homer’s Odyssey, Gwen Cooper is the author of Diary of a South Beach Party Girl. Her books received positive reviews on NPR and in such publications as USSA Today, People, and Entertainment Weekly. A native of Miami, Florida, she worked for five years in non-profit administration, marketing, and fundraising. She led direct-service volunteer activities on behalf of such organizations as Pet Rescue, The Miami Lighthouse for the Blind, and the Miami Rescue Mission. She also initiated Reading Pen Pals, an elementary school-based literacy program in Miami’s Little Haiti. She was selected for membership in the chamber of commerce’s Leadership Miami Program and nominated for the organization’s Carlos Arboleya Award. She also joined the Hannah Kawn Poetry Foundation and eventually switched from non-profit administration to marketing communications.

She moved to Manhattan, New York, in 2001 where she was the creative services director for AOL Time Warner’s online marketing group. In 2003, she became the special projects manager at Wenner Media, the publisher of Rolling Stone and Us Weekly where she worked until the sale of her first book. She lives in Manhattan with her husband Laurence and their three cats: Homer, Clayton, and Fanny.

Love Saves the Day is available from Amazon and other online retailers. It can also be purchased and downloaded in a recorded format from Audible. I suggest you curl up in your favorite armchair with your cat and read this book.

 

Abbie Johnson Taylor, Author of We Shall Overcome and How to Build a Better Mousetrap: Recollections and Reflections of a Family Caregiver