MAY 2019 - AudioFile
Brian Nishii narrates this imaginative tale set in Japan about the complexities of death, life, and cats. At the outset, an unnamed 30-year-old man receives a terminal diagnosis. As imminent death looms, he receives a visit from the devil (cheekily named Aloha). The young man must decide if Aloha's offer to extend his life is worth the alternative losses he'd have to endure. As the young man, Nishii offers a sensitive portrayal, moving from disbelief and despair to growing acceptance and resolution as he reckons with past relationships. As the devil, Nishii employs a gregarious attitude, lightening the character's macabre sensibilities. Then there's Cabbage, the cat, whose specific opinions, offered in a posh accent, prompt deeper insight into the meaning of life. A brief, charming parable. A.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
“At first, If Cats Disappeared from the World feels as light and puzzling as a fairy tale, but then, steadily, chapter by chapter—using nothing more than conversation, memory, and a winning narrator's searching, sensitive thought experiments—it raises its cosmic stakes higher than any thriller. Like a padding cat or the shadow of death, Genki Kawamura's book snuck up on me; the next thing I knew, I was crying.” —Robin Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough
"If you're a fan of The Guest Cat (or even just cats generally), you'll love this." —The Sunday Times (UK)
"A funny and heartwarming meditation on the meaning of life." —Book Riot
"A warm, quirky novel on life, love, family estrangement and what remains when we are gone with a surprising emotional charge." —The Observer (UK)
"A poignant, affecting story about facing up to one's mortality, taking responsibility for one's choices and deciding what truly holds value." —The Herald (UK)
MAY 2019 - AudioFile
Brian Nishii narrates this imaginative tale set in Japan about the complexities of death, life, and cats. At the outset, an unnamed 30-year-old man receives a terminal diagnosis. As imminent death looms, he receives a visit from the devil (cheekily named Aloha). The young man must decide if Aloha's offer to extend his life is worth the alternative losses he'd have to endure. As the young man, Nishii offers a sensitive portrayal, moving from disbelief and despair to growing acceptance and resolution as he reckons with past relationships. As the devil, Nishii employs a gregarious attitude, lightening the character's macabre sensibilities. Then there's Cabbage, the cat, whose specific opinions, offered in a posh accent, prompt deeper insight into the meaning of life. A brief, charming parable. A.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2019-02-17
A lonely postman learns that he's about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt-wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura's slim novel is, by his own admission, "boring…a monotone guy," so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that "even the cat looked disgusted with me." Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he's willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that "people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.") But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings ("Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn't changed; it's you who's changed") written in prose so awkward, it's possibly satire ("Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain"). Even the postman's beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it's not.
