Page 45 Review by Stephen
Impossibly enough this is even sharper than the first collection, and comes under a classy slate-blue on calico cover, die-cut to reveal two colour panels within. There's a lot of colour this time round, plus there are two cats for the price of one, curled up in co-habitation or bouncing each other up and off the walls.
Acutely observed, it's another antidote to the more saccharine cat books trotted out every Christmas by Waterstones & co. and as Mark once observed there's often something comically demonic about Jeffrey Brown's cats when they get in a tizzy. Like young, furry gargoyles on speed.
Here they destroy new Venetian blinds within hours of erection (it's not what they do, it's the way that they do it), get their backs on inert vacuum cleaners in a derisibly token act of defiance, and perch impossibly (or most inconveniently) then enter stealth mode when you least expect it. Covert cat, lying in wait on top of the fridge.
But it's all in the telling, and Jeffrey nails their body language, movement, trajectories as well as that wide-eyed mania when pouncing on flies, followed by that split-second switch to "not me" insouciance when they've quite clearly failed. Same goes for falling from a tree. "Dignity at all times!"? I really don't think so.
It takes far more skill to make a book like this than it looks.
