Cat of the North and Other Tales

There’s something about cats.

And love.

And the Northwest Territories.

In this book of short stories, Shirley M. McGrath takes you on a journey to a little known place called Prelude Lake, just north of Yellowknife. There she lived in a magical house called Dragonholm with her husband and a menagerie of cats for ten eventful years.

Part memoir, part book of poetry, Cat of the North and Other Tails Tales demonstrates McGrath’s great capacity for storytelling. She invites you to immerse yourself in her life, surrounded by all of her favourite things, and does so with a deft hand at easy humour and a special insight into feline psychology.

McGrath speaks to her cats and they speak right back, loud and proud or grouchy and pouty, it all depends on the mood of the day. In the story “Sandy,” McGrath has to manage personality differences between her husband, Sandy, and her cat, Ming.

My first term at the University of New Brunswick went well, and I returned to Yellowknife for Christmas. There, I was met with complaints from both Sandy and Ming about each other.
“He doesn’t respect me,” sniffed Ming. “He treats me like an ordinary cat.”
“She’s so arrogant,” claimed Sandy. “Not the least bit affectionate.”
I told them both that they would have to learn to get along together because I was going back to school.

Whether the cats’ antics make you laugh or the quirky poems make you smile, there is no doubt what this book is about: love, pure and simple.