My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me

Novelist Carr (the Kreizler series) delivers a lively and moving memoir about his 17-year companionship with a Siberian forest cat named Masha. Carr first met Masha while visiting a shelter in Vermont. The semi-feral cat was rescued from abandonment in an empty apartment and had developed a reputation among the staff for extreme skittishness. When an employee noticed Masha cozying up to Carr, the attendant implored him to adopt her, and he promptly brought her along to his new home in Upstate New York. Masha quickly took on the dominant role—she hated loud music, so Caleb edited his listening habits to satisfy her—and over the pair’s life together, Carr came into his own as a caretaker and a companion. He nursed Masha back to health after attacks from a bear and a pack of dogs, turned a blind eye when she stole visitors’ socks, and tended to her arthritis as his own health started to falter and he underwent surgery for peritonitis. Carr alternates the chronicle of his and Masha’s relationship with details about his unstable New York City childhood, which was marked by violent outbursts from an alcoholic father and drove him to find comfort in the family cats. Carr’s gift for narrative momentum gives shape to the potentially flimsy premise, and he wrings real pathos from this tale of wounded souls finding one another. Even readers without their own furry friend will be moved. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (Apr.)