A Low-Commitment Pet for a Low-Commitment Owner: Guest Post by Tom Spencer

When I came to start writing my current project, a second novel starring cantankerous archivist Agatha Dorn as my detective, I decided she should get a cat. Agatha starts the novel living in a strange new town; she has no friends (because she’s a huge pain in the neck); she’s lonely. She needs a cat! Everyone needs a cat! The only problem was, I had already established in the first book that Agatha hates cats. Or rather, as something of a control freak, she hates the chaos a cat would bring into her life. She is especially grossed out by the notion of hairballs, of which she has heard. 

Now, there are cats who do not produce hairballs – my own cat, Coconut, for instance, has never vomited up anything of the kind. But Coconut still creates all kinds of chaos in my house. She baits the dog into attacking her then swipes at the dog’s face with her claws. She runs out of the front door if it’s left open even a crack. She walks on the chopping board right as I am preparing dinner, tracking lord-knows-what across my food preparation surfaces. She flagrantly steals pieces of chicken, ham, bread, whatever I’m making, right in front of my eyes! The only deterrent she respects is the water spray bottle, and that only for a couple of seconds, before she’s right back to thieving the chicken again. No, Agatha would never be able to stand having a cat in her flat. 

But still, I thought, Agatha should have a cat. And besides, in Blake Snyder’s famous phrase, main characters ought to “save the cat” somewhere near the beginning of the narrative – especially unsympathetic main characters like mine, whom readers might not be disposed to like much. How better to “save the cat” than by having Agatha look after a literal cat? And also, cats are awesome! They flow down the stairs like water. They come and drape their tails against your face even when they are positive that they do not want to be petted. A cat would be just the thing to get Agatha out of the doldrums in which she finds herself at the start of the novel. 

My solution was to get Agatha a feral cat – a cat who stays outside, on her balcony, dividing his time between Agatha and who knows how many other owners. A feral cat whom Agatha can feed expensive cat milk that is gentle on feline digestive systems, but who basically ignores Agatha. This seemed like the perfect solution – a low-commitment pet for a low-commitment owner. This, incidentally, was also the solution we adopted with our own children when they were toddlers, before we got Coconut – we left food out for a black cat who would come into our backyard, eat the food, and leave. But our eldest son was convinced that we “had” a cat – he told all his teachers at preschool that we had a cat named Elsa (he was very into Frozen at the time, and who better to name a completely black cat after than an ice princess?). So for a few years, we escaped having feline chaos invading our own house. When it comes to my novel, though, the only question now is what to do with Agatha’s cat now she’s got him? Maybe I should pull a Rita Mae Brown and have the cat solve the mystery? 

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Tom Spencer is an expat Londoner currently living and working in Montgomery, Alabama. He is the author of the mystery novel The Mystery of the Crooked Man (Pushkin), recently longlisted for the CWA Whodunnit Dagger. He has published creative work in various journals, including a story nominated for a Pushcart Prize and another shortlisted for the Galley Beggar Press Prize. Under his real name, Tom Perrin, he has published an academic book on twentieth-century fiction, as well as having written for the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, and elsewhere.