Cat Person and Other Stories by Kristen Roupenian
“The thought of what it would take to stop what she had set in motion was overwhelming: it would require an amount of tact and gentleness that she felt was impossible to summon. It wasn’t that she was scared he would try to force her to do something against her will but that insisting they stop now, after everything she’d done to push this forward, would make her seem spoiled and capricious.”
After shooting to viral fame when her short story “Cat Person” was published in 2017 by The New Yorker, Kristen Roupenian’s debut collection Cat Person and Other Stories (2019) (previously titled You Know You Want This) was hotly anticipated. For the most part, it does not disappoint.
Across twelve succinctly written, visceral stories, Roupenian takes us deep under the skin of what it means to be female in a male-dominated world. Almost every story focuses on power, control, and the misuse of bodies, often in violent and terrifying ways.
“Bad Boy,” the opening story, is written in a compelling plural first-person narrative from the perspective of a couple who ‘adopt’ a friend of theirs into their home after a particularly toxic break-up. What begins as subtle jokes about telling him to stop texting his ex slowly escalates until they dominate his life completely. This story’s ending left me a bit stunned and unsure entirely if I wanted to keep reading. As far as the human psyche’s darkness goes, this story was the worst of it within this collection.
“At first, what happened during these nights was a strange, unspoken thing, a bubble clinging precariously to the edge of real life, but then about a week after it started, we made the first rule for him to follow during the day, and suddenly the world cracked open and overflowed with possibility.”
Like “Cat Person” and “The Good Guy,” some of the stories are grounded in reality, whereas others veer into a fantasy realm. In “Sardines,” an 11-year-old girl, who is depicted entirely without sentiment, big-nosed, sweaty, and meaty-breathed, makes a wish "for something mean.” The story builds a wicked sense of foreboding until the horror of that wish is finally revealed. In “The Mirror The Bucket and The Old Thigh Bone,” Roupenian creates an odd fairytale-esqe story about a princess who cannot pick a suitor. The Royal Advisor tricks her into seeing a contraption made out of a mirror, a bucket and an old thigh bone as a lover - the mirror reflecting her own image and the bucket echoing her own words. After being convinced “she only loves herself” she picks a suitor who then goes to increasingly deranged lengths to make her happy.
“The Matchbox Sign” was a standout for me. Laura begins experiencing unexplained insect bites that she itches until they form large and grotesque wounds. What starts on her arms, spreads across her body and face but with no indication of why or what is causing them (and her boyfriend, David, going bite-free despite living together). Eventually, she goes to the doctor and is questioned about her sleep, mood, and emotional balance. Before any physical investigation is conducted, she is dismissed as experiencing psycho-somatic symptoms and placed on anti-psychotic medication. The story comes full circle with it’s ending, and it was a chilling nod to the fact that women’s pain is never really taken seriously:
“This sudden, sly reversal of meaning seems desperately unfair: that Laura should have spent so much effort trying to gather proof of what is happening to her, only to have that very proof taken as evidence that she is losing her mind.”
The title story, “Cat Person,” tells the story of Margot, 20, and Robert, 34, and their disastrous short-lived relationship. After meeting at the theatre where Margot works, they enter into weeks of texting before eventually meeting up for a date. For anyone who experienced the discomfort that awaits when discovering the person you’ve conversed with for weeks is very different in real life, this story will ring true. Written a few months before the #MeToo movement took off, it succinctly sums up gendered power imbalances and the dance many women find themselves having to do to untangle themselves from unwanted sexual attention.
These stories are impeccably written and kept me engrossed throughout, although some felt as though they built to an ending that didn’t deliver. “Bad Boy,” “Look at Your Game, Girl” and “Cat Person” all delivered a punchline that left me with chills, but I didn’t find the same sense of conclusion in many of the other stories. Roupenian handles some tough subject matter, and there’s also hints at humour throughout which becomes a lifeline readers will cling to.
Fans of short story writers such as Samanta Schweblin, Shobna Roa and Intan Paramaditha will also enjoy these - just make sure you’ve got a cosy blanket and a warming drink to help see you through.
Elaine Mead is a freelance writer and book reviewer, currently residing in Hobart, Tasmania. She is passionate about the ways we can use literature to learn from our experiences to become more authentic versions of ourselves and obsessed with showing you photos of her Dachshund puppy. You can find her online under @wordswithelaine.
