My Cat Spit McGee

My Cat Spit McGeeBy Willie Morris

As a cat, I found this book to be hilarious. After growing up in the South as a dog person and cat hater, the author, Mr. Morris, falls in love with a woman who is passionate about cats and finds he will have to adjust to a life with them. He suffers his own personal hell over this until the day one special kitten comes into his life. Mind you, with the exception of having different colored eyes (uncommon, but not all that rare in felines) and enjoying a bit of travel (definitely uncommon among felines), there is nothing about Spit McGee that makes him more special than any other cat — we all are special creatures. But for reasons of chemistry and timing, Morris comes to completely and utterly worship Spit, and spends the better part of 150 pages describing in great detail every little thing that he does. I have to commend Spit for the great job he did with his human. Morris has a very florid, literary style that hearkens back to some mid-20th century authors, who I imagine were his influences (he was active as a writer and editor from the 1960s onward). He marvels at Spit’s intuitive abilities, wonders at his penchant for sitting right on any papers he needs at any given time and is fascinated by his ability to command attention without even trying. (As we all know, these are talents every cat has.) And of course, Morris ultimately acknowledges how unlike dogs cats are. (Uh, duh.) There is a reason cats are drawn to authors. We love to have people writing about us, especially when that writer is one of some note. Sadly for Spit, Morris died shortly after completion of this book. Not only did he lose a companion, he lost the chance for a sequel.