Fierce Attachments: A Life with Cats($18.95Value)

Description

With charming black-and-white illustrations and personal anecdotes, award-winning author Rosemary Sullivan shares a heartwarming meditation on the human-feline relationship and the author’s bond with a pair of cats she and her husband Juan feel fortunate to have shared a life with. In this warm, insightful exploration of the human–feline bond, acclaimed writer Rosemary Sullivan teams up with sister and artist Colleen Sullivan, inviting readers into the lives of two unforgettable cats: Negrito, an intrepid neighbourhood explorer, and Ensueño, a charming trickster with a talent for theft. Rescued as kittens by their heroic mother—who braved a burning house six times to save her litter—these cats grow into unique personalities who shape the daily rhythms of Sullivan’s life. Blending personal anecdotes, natural history and thoughtful reflections, Fierce Attachments captures the mystery of how cats perceive the world: seeing ultraviolet hues, navigating by scent, remembering with uncanny clarity and demonstrating powerful homing instincts. At once enchanting and contemplative, Fierce Attachments suggests that cats may be more than companions—they may be intermediaries, reconnecting us to the natural world and reminding us of our place in a larger cosmic story. This is a delightful, companionable book for cat lovers, nature readers and anyone intrigued by the quiet intelligence of the animals who share our lives. “With her poet’s heart and biographer’s curiosity Sullivan gives us a portrait of beloved cats that is as magical as it is illuminating.”  —Barbara Gowdy, author of The White Bone “Tender and moving—an eloquent memoir, as soulful and intelligent as the cats she writes about, and beautifully illustrated by Sullivan’s sister, Colleen, whose paintings literally scratch those cats back to life.”  —Plum Johnson, author of They Left Us Everything “Whimsical, at times profound, a reflection of what it is to be a cat in order to be reminded what it is to be human.”  —Roxana Spicer,  bestselling author of The Traitor's Daughter “Beautifully written, adventurous excursions into the world of her feline companions, Ensueño and Negrito. Colleen Sullivan’s playful illustrations are also welcome intrusions into the text—as if a black cat had jumped up and lounged on the pages of the author’s manuscript.”  —Marni Jackson, author of Don't I Know You? Rosemary Sullivan  is the celebrated author of seventeen books including biography, memoir, poetry, travelogue and short fiction. She is best known for her biography Stalin’s Daughter (HarperCollins, 2015), which was published in 23 countries and won the RBC Taylor Prize, the B.C. National Non-Fiction Prize, the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Biographers International Organization Plutarch Award, and was a finalist for the PEN / Bograd Weld Award for Biography. Her book Villa Air-Bel (HarperCollins, 2006) was awarded the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem Award in Holocaust History. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto and has lectured in Canada, the US, Europe, India and Latin America. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2012. She lives in East York, Ontario. Colleen Sullivan is a design and fine arts graduate of Concordia University in Montreal. She has worked extensively in the UK, the US, and Canada. In tandem with a career in graphic design, Sullivan is an accomplished printmaker, painter and illustrator of several children’s books, including Molito by Rosemary Sullivan (Black Moss Press, 2014). Her work focuses on the bold use of dramatic gestures and expressive imagery, whether that be figurative, abstract or imaginary. An Award of Excellence recipient from the California State Fair, she is represented in public and private collections in the US and Canada and has shown her work internationally in North America, Europe and Asia. Her art studio is currently located outside of Victoria, British Columbia.