The world seems divided into ‘dog’ or ‘cat’ people. I am very much a ‘dog’ person. After friends recently urged me to read Hiro Arikawa’s The Travelling Cat Chronicles, it seemed serendipitous when her latest short story collection arrived in my letterbox.

The Goodbye Cat is a collection of seven short stories centred around abandoned cats that have been rescued. Most are rescued as kittens, their eyes not yet open. While the stories revolve around the cats, they also focus on family interactions and relationships and, as the title of the book infers, most end with some form of parting and goodbye. While some of the stories are indeed sad, imbued with the grief of loss, they all have a feel-good nature to them.

One cat helps a bumbling father to care for a newborn baby, turning him into the husband his wife needs. Another cat, rescued from the side of the road as a kitten, helps to melt a father’s stone heart. There is a story about a cat’s love and devotion to a man who fails to show any sign of love in return. My favourite of the collection, containing a hint of magical realism, involves an entire island populated almost exclusively by cats. I later found out that these islands exist in Japan and are quite the tourist attraction. There is, as you would expect, a definite feeling of Japanese culture running through each story.

Although I believe cat lovers will indeed appreciate this collection more, the stories are enjoyable enough for everybody to read, possibly even dog lovers.

Reviewed by Neale Lucas

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

HIRO ARIKAWA lives in Tokyo. A bestseller in Japan, The Travelling Cat Chronicles has become an unexpected international hit, and is due to be made into a live-action Japanese film.

Bursting with empathy and love, The Goodbye Cat explores the unstoppable cycle of life as we see how the steadiness and devotion of a well-loved cat never lets us down.