Cat Brushing

March 1, 2022

A debut author at 80, Campbell resists stereotyping as she explores the lives and desires of women aged 60 to 90 in Cat Brushing. From public school teacher and NYU MFA graduate Fofana, the eight linked portraits in Stories from The Tenants Downstairs plumb the lives of tenants in the Banneker Homes, a low-income high rise in Harlem threatened by gentrification (150,000-copy first printing). The author of five books of poetry and winner of F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story and Robert Bausch Fiction awards, combat veteran Glose tells what it was like to fight the "forever" war in All the Ruined Men. First published in Japan in 2003, popular author Yoshimoto's Dead-End Memories limns women making unusual discoveries as they find ways to heal from trauma.

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 6, 2022
Campbell debuts at 80 with an accomplished collection centering the emotional and psychological lives of the elderly, delivering astute observations and sharp critiques, and restoring agency to characters who are routinely robbed of it. Foregrounding sexuality, “Susan and Miffy” depicts an 86-year-old woman as she develops an attraction to her younger caretaker. (“The lust of an old man is disgusting but the lust of an old woman is worse. Everyone knows that,” goes the opening line.) In the title story, the narrator contemplates the dispossession “of rights, of respect, of desire” while fearing her son is going to take away her beloved cat. Some of the stories take on a sci-fi tinge, as in “Schopenhauer and I,” wherein a character is given a robot to ward off loneliness and help her with daily tasks—and surveil her every move. While the plots are sometimes too heavily reliant on coincidence, as in “Lacrimae Rerum,” when a woman happens upon her long-ago ex-boyfriend’s funeral, and occasionally employ choppy dialogue (“I am leaving you. Our relationship is over. I am in love with Hils. I thought you knew. Everyone else knows”), Campbell succeeds in portraying the characters’ complex inner lives. Ripe with sensuality, this is full of vivid portraits. Agent: Eleanor Birne, PEW Literary.

July 1, 2022
In these debut stories, whose author is 80, growing old isn't for the faint of heart. "The lust of an old man is disgusting," according to Susan, the protagonist of the opening story, "but the lust of an old woman is worse." Raised to be "ladylike" and "proper," Susan finds herself suddenly gripped by desire for Miffy, her nurse at the care home where she lives. Miffy recognizes Susan's need for human touch, giving her a manicure and then, the day before Susan dies, even kissing her. That's not the end, though. Miffy's boyfriend is disgusted by her affection for the old woman; Miffy decides she's not suited for nursing; and Susan's sons react indifferently to their mother's death. Several stories follow this pattern: elderly female characters finally do what they want, which feels cathartic and empowering but only briefly, as the stories close with the judgment of others. In "Cat Brushing," the narrator's connection to a cat gives her great pleasure but is also an ominous reminder of her limited independence as a guest in her son's house. Elsewhere, Campbell, who's British, imagines too-close-to-reality dystopic futures in which older people are stripped of their independence and given high-tech companions. In "Lockdown Fantasms," an obvious allusion to the pandemic, the over-70s have the option of turning over their memories in order to receive a weekly visit from a fantasm, a temporary balm. Campbell's reserved, formal tone, which reflects women shaped by conservative gender norms, and her bleak endings combine to make devastating stories. Sometimes, though, these very same qualities keep the stories from achieving their emotional punch. The final piece, "On Being Alone," which is actually about finding connection, is like a sunny day after a month of rain. An affecting collection about the many indignities of being old.

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July 1, 2022
Octogenarian debut author Campbell made a name for herself in 2017 when her short story "Cat Brushing" was published in the London Review of Books. That story and 12 others make up this collection starring older women and their interior musings. Some are facing death, like Nell, who recalls comforting a young woman engaged in cutting herself and thinks it might be just the way to take control of her own life, while some try to relive their youth, such as Lamia, who tries to recapture a romantic tryst by lightly stalking her long-ago lover. Many of the stories explore protagonists' sexuality: Susan falls in love with her young caretaker, Miffy; an unnamed narrator is visited by a government-sponsored phantasm for a sexual encounter as she lives in perpetual pandemic lockdown. Campbell's writing is intimate and enveloping, and while main characters may share commonalities, their stories are quite eclectic. The rare perspective of Campbell's collection makes this a breath of fresh air.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from July 1, 2022

DEBUT Published as its author turns 80, this first collection plumbs the lives, longings, and ongoing intellectual turmoil of older women in language that's light but tart and penetrating; Campbell is a master of the apt phrase, as when an upright woman is described as having "the cold virtue of undamaged porcelain." As she demonstrates repeatedly in her briskly told tales, "Ageing is often represented as an accumulation, of disease, of discomforts, of wrinkles, but it is really a process of dispossession, of rights, of respect, of desire." These characters have lost control, from the woman whose beloved Siamese cat will soon be taken away, to an inmate at a fashionable care home given a robot presumably to assuage her loneliness but actually inflicting on her "a lifetime relationship with the worst kind of authoritarian menace." But independent thought remains, and revelation is possible. An ailing 86-year-old woman for whom physical closeness has always been a chore--she's a typical example of stiff "British middle-class Protestant womanhood"--suddenly conceives a passion for a beautiful young caretaker, and readers sense her new understanding of how we are our bodies moving gratefully through this world. VERDICT A charming and incisive study of women in late life that will be revelatory to all readers.

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.