This essay provides an examination of the painful risks we take when loving deeply, while highlighting the beauty and joy of such tender connections. The author packs an emotional punch in a small package, and it will touch your heart in an unforgettable way.

“It is hard to protect a person you love from pain, because people often choose pain; I am a person who often chooses pain. An animal will never choose pain…” This book broke me down and put me back together. It is a love story, not only for Mary’s lost cat Gattino but for all of the difficult and painful relationships she has lived through this far. From her complicated relationship with her father to the relationship she had with children she fostered, even to how she relates emotionally to her sister. And no matter how much she tries to shower them with love, sometimes they will choose pain, because that’s what humans do. She battles with trying to rationalise the amount of love she feels for Gattino and the pain she feels for losing him, but throughout the essay she realises she doesn’t have to try to explain her emotions, which was a beautiful conclusion to a beautiful book. Lost Cat admires the beauty and terror of the love a human can hold in their heart. And I will love this book forever.

A moving account of loss, and different kinds of mourning. Gaitskill examines family relationships, such as that which she has with her father, imagining the ways that his own experience of loss shaped him as a person and his relationships with his daughters. She communicates with those she has lost, her father and the titular cat, a scrawny half blind stray kitten she brought home from Italy, and while she tells the story of her search for her cat, she recounts the turbulent relationships she formed with two young siblings she and her husband fostered over a number of years. All of this adds up to a truly touching piece of writing which I know will stay with me.

What a writer! She tells so much in less than a 100 pages, it really is a masterclass in writing. As for the cat , well.... Please just read this it really needs to be seen to be believed.