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Rating:  - Marge Piercy, `Sleeping with Cats: A Memoir'
While not as well-known as the American feminist `names' of the 60's, author, poet and activist Marge Piercy has an assured place in their company. I was a late-comer to discovery of her extraordinary work (who could fail to be converted by `Woman on the Edge of Time'?) but have been spell-bound ever since. Personal and political are seamlessly melded in Piercy's diverse oeuvre, and the ease with which she explores interpersonal dynamics is as striking as her interrogations of the many guises of discrimination and the role of technology. It was with great anticipation that I approached her memoir `Sleeping with Cats', which, like her fiction and poetry, is rich and arresting.
The title of her memoir foregrounds her enduring love affair with felines. `Sleeping with Cats' is dedicated to `all those [she has] loved - two and four footed'. Tender evocation of the cats she has nurtured (and which have in turn nurtured her) sit alongside her account of personal and political life, and a selection of her poetry. I am not a `cat person', but Piercy's skill in rendering feline diversity is such that this now feels like a character flaw! Her included poems are limpid and mesmerizing; conveying as much `between the lines' as the words she weaves. As to her accounts of early familhy life, ongoing social activism, and two marriages prior to her enduring passionate partnership with writer Ira Wood, they are a veritable treasure trove of insight, suggestiveness, and relentless self-examination.
At every level, this is a resonant memoir, its combination of diverse elements as potent as it is provocative. Marge Piercy seems to me to be one of the most original of feminist voices, and it is difficult to convey the blend of her alchemy. The notes she sounds are wide-ranging, and she casts searching light on a vast array of topics within a life which has never ceased to be passionately engaged. `Sleeping with Cats' lingers in the mind and heart - a highly recommended read.
Pam Stavropoulos
Rating:  - Her emotional life
In the first chapter, Marge Piercy writes, "This memoir focuses on my emotional life, not on my literary or political adventures, or most of my friendships." Consider this when you read it, because this memoir isn't a simple retelling of events. It is written from the heart.
The writing is honest and lyrical. As Piercy escorts the reader through the sometimes rough 'n' tumble decades of her life, groundbass to it all is her relationships with cats. Anyone can appreciate this, but those who have known and loved even one cat will understand Piercy's tender regard for her feline friends.
Rating:  - Sleeping with Cats: A Memoir
I began reading this book with a delicious sense of anticipation. Ms. Piercy's writing is, as usual, beautifully crafted, almost lyrical. Her use of the cats in her life was, for me, a tantalizing hook. But unfortunately, no matter how much I wanted to care enough about her life to pick up the book after once putting it down, there was nothing in it, for me, to make that happen. I found the book to be nothing more than a not very interesting, self-indulgent trip down memory lane.
Rating: - Not what I expected
This book was NOT what I expected. If you're wanting a book about CATS and ONLY cats, this is NOT the book for you...but if you're like me and fell inlove with the title and love cats, and are willing to give this book a chance--you WON'T REGRET IT.
It is a GREAT book, all about the life of the author and growing up Jewish and everything else that comes with being a little girl who does love cats...but can't seem to hang on to them...thanks to dear ole dad.
I hated to see it end.
Rating:  - A lot of Marge and not so much cats
I was hoping this would be more about cats since I am researching writing a cat book, but instead it was a great deal about the author Marge Piercy, her entire life, in fact. Since I was unfamiliar with her work, reading her life story in such detail was of little interest to me, although I found parts of it -- the struggle to find time to write and balance a marriage at the same time -- interesting. But her chapters on her cats, especially when they were sick or dying, moved me greatly. I ended the book crying since Oboe dies in the last chapter, and forgot how long it took me to get to this very moving part. So...if you are interested in the author, you will feel like her friend by the time you finish. If you are interested only in cats, skip around to the chapters where she focuses on them.
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