Welcome to a world where cats experience complex philosophical thought and existential pain. Love & Murder are two house cats, brother and sister, who are thrust from domestic comfort into a cruel world. The cats remember infinite bowls of milk and the honeyed voice of their owner “Lady,” who catered to their every whim. The days of on-demand feeding and ample sun spots in the garden have come to an end. Lady’s multiple coos oozing with affection have stopped. Now the two cats are strangers wandering in a strange land.
Everywhere they turn, the two cats are on the verge of being maimed, impaled by fangs or sharp claws, and having their throats slit. Murder is the heavyweight champ and the protector of his sister Love. She is a sleek seductress who cannily gets her way. Full of mischief and very clever, Love is kept out of harm’s way by her brother.
The earth throbs with floods, famine, drought and horrific thunderstorms as cats, people, dogs, rats, all living things, succumb to the ravages of climate change. Food and fresh water are scarce, prompting a violent scramble for survival. As the world teeters on the brink of ecological disaster, Love & Murder endure scars, nicks and cuts at the mercy of routine slash and fang fights.
From abandoned warehouses to desperate homeless encampments, rogue gangs of vicious cats engage in extreme street fighting. The boundaries among a quaint town, urban decay and suburban sprawl merge into a single war zone, a killing field where no prisoners are taken and no one gets out alive. The violence is palpable. A bloody barbaric eyesore. I’d love to read Love & Murder to my kitty, but I don’t think he’d ever forgive me.
Other powerful stories with sympathetic characters who happen to be cats include Rossella the malnourished kitty in Elsa Morante’s La Storia. In war ravaged Italy, Rosella is weakened by famine and unable to nurse her only kitten. And most recently, Mayumi Inaba's Mornings Without Mii is the author’s memoir of her 20-year relationship with her cat. Both books conjure an emotional bond between the cat and the reader that can heal the soul.
Love and Murder is not intended to be a charming tale of adventure inhabited by sociopaths who happen to be cats. Nor is it strictly a tale about a pair of house cats who embark on a journey into the heart of darkness. Take heed, this is an immigrant story that supersedes the category of pure fantasy or science fiction. The parallels to life in the Twenty-first century are unmistakably spot on. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the nightmare of the deportation of American immigrants, along with encroaching climate change, will not stray far from the reader’s mind.
Katie Christine Bishop’s exquisite language and penchant for detail describes the cats every move, graceful or clumsy, as well as their moments of stillness and indomitable quest for survival. The two cats wander the earth, refugees scampering to avoid being killed while they search for a paltry morsel to eat. “Without a refuge, there was nowhere to go. This was another gang, another power grab.” And in the end, “The big men in black boots always got their way.”
Patricia Vaccarino
Patricia Vaccarino is an accomplished writer who has written award-winning film scripts, press materials, articles, essays, speeches, web content, marketing collateral, and ten books.