Da Capo Press

283 pages, $24

Review by Erin Hutton

Framed by Peter Trachtenberg’s journey to locate his beloved cat Biscuit, Another Insane Devotion: On the Love of Cats and Persons, is a memoir of love stories braided with historic notes on the bonds between humans and cats. This is a book for anyone who has ever let a cat outside and later discovered it has disappeared. It is for anyone who has loved (and lost) a cat. And perhaps even for those who don’t understand what it is cat lovers love about cats, but who want to learn.

When Trachtenberg took a temporary job in North Carolina and his wife, F., was at an artists’ residency in Europe, the couple left their home in New York and their cats in the care of Bruno, who Trachtenberg refers to as a “kid” and “useless as a cat-sitter.” Bruno’s uselessness rose to Trachtenberg’s attention when Bruno called to inform him that their orange cat had been missing for three days. After hearing the news, Trachtenberg purchased a plane ticket to go home and look for the cat, who was not so much orange as golden, biscuit-colored, like her name.

Trachtenberg reflects on his decision to travel in search of Biscuit: “I was half convinced that Biscuit was dead and half convinced that even if she was alive, she was unlikely to be anyplace where I could find her. I didn’t want to spend money I didn’t have traveling seven hundred miles to have my heart broken searching for a cat I wouldn’t find. And yet I did. I went. What was I thinking?” Continue reading →