My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me

by Caleb Carr

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Built around the human-feline connection, this is more than just a cat memoir. It’s the deeply personal story of trauma, illness and aging in both a human and a cat, and how the two find peace and harmony in each other.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“The most brilliant feline portrait in literary history.” –People Magazine (Book of the Week)

The #1 bestselling author of The Alienist tells the extraordinary story of Masha, a half-wild rescue cat who fought off a bear, tackled Caleb like a linebacker—and bonded with him as tightly as any cat and human possibly can.

“Dares us to take a journey into love and pain . . . My Beloved Monster is a love story and a requiem.” –Wall Street Journal

“Excellent…Worth the emotional investment, and the tissues you will need by the end, to spend time with a writer and cat duo as extraordinary as Masha and Carr.” —Washington Post Book World

Caleb Carr has had special relationships with cats since he was a young boy in a turbulent household, famously peopled by the founding members of the Beat Generation, where his steadiest companions were the adopted cats that lived with him both in the city and the country. As an adult, he has had many close feline companions, with relationships that have outlasted most of his human ones. But only after building a three-story home in rural, upstate New York did he enter into the most extraordinary of all of his cat pairings: Masha, a Siberian Forest cat who had been abandoned as a kitten, and was languishing in a shelter when Caleb met her. She had hissed and fought off all previous carers and potential adopters, but somehow, she chose Caleb as her savior.
 
For the seventeen years that followed, Caleb and Masha were inseparable. Masha ruled the house and the extensive, dangerous surrounding fields and forests. When she was hurt, only Caleb could help her. When he suffered long-standing physical ailments, Masha knew what to do. Caleb’s life-long study of the literature of cat behavior, and his years of experience with previous cats, helped him decode much of Masha’s inner life. But their bond went far beyond academic studies and experience. The story of Caleb and Masha is an inspiring and life-affirming relationship for readers of all backgrounds and interests—a love story like no other.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316503600
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	04/16/2024
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	16,407
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Caleb Carr is an American novelist and military historian. He has worked at the Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Affairs Quarterly, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, and taught military history, including World Military History, the History of American Intelligence, and Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, at Bard College.

He was born in Manhattan, and for the majority of his life he lived on the Lower East Side of that city, spending his summers and many weekends at his family's home in Cherry Plain, New York. In 2000, he purchased his own property, known as Misery Mountain, in Cherry Plain; and in 2006 he moved there permanently.

He was educated at St. Luke's School and Friends Seminary in New York, Kenyon College, and New York University, where he gained a degree in Military and Diplomatic History.

He is the author of eleven books, several of which, most notably the historical thriller The Alienist, as well as his memoir, My Beloved Monster, have become international best-sellers, and his work has been translated into over two dozen languages. His book, The Lessons of Terror, concerned one of his non-fiction areas of specialization, terrorism, and became a controversial yet standard volume in the literature of that subject.

He has appeared before the House Joint Subcommittee on National Security, was a featured speaker at a closed-door Defense Department conference on the War on Terrorism, and made regular appearances on almost all television networks during the American invasion of Iraq.

Asked what fiction writers have influenced him the most, he includes Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Rudyard Kipling, William Gibson, and Michael Crichton.

His non-fiction influences he cites as "eclectic and too numerous to list."

Carr has also worked extensively in the theater, and in movies and television; in the latter capacity, he spent several years in Los Angeles; his last feature script attracted Liam Neeson, John Frankenheimer, and Vittorio Storaro to sign on; when Frankenheimer suddenly and tragically died, however, the project fell apart, and Carr returned to New York.

Carr passed away at his home in Cherry Plain, New York, in 2024.

Hometown:

New York, New York

Date of Birth:

August 2, 1955

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

Attended Kenyon College, 1973-75; B.A. in history, New York University, 1977

Editorial Reviews

02/26/2024

Novelist Carr (the Kreizler series) delivers a lively and moving memoir about his 17-year companionship with a Siberian forest cat named Masha. Carr first met Masha while visiting a shelter in Vermont. The semi-feral cat was rescued from abandonment in an empty apartment and had developed a reputation among the staff for extreme skittishness. When an employee noticed Masha cozying up to Carr, the attendant implored him to adopt her, and he promptly brought her along to his new home in Upstate New York. Masha quickly took on the dominant role—she hated loud music, so Caleb edited his listening habits to satisfy her—and over the pair’s life together, Carr came into his own as a caretaker and a companion. He nursed Masha back to health after attacks from a bear and a pack of dogs, turned a blind eye when she stole visitors’ socks, and tended to her arthritis as his own health started to falter and he underwent surgery for peritonitis. Carr alternates the chronicle of his and Masha’s relationship with details about his unstable New York City childhood, which was marked by violent outbursts from an alcoholic father and drove him to find comfort in the family cats. Carr’s gift for narrative momentum gives shape to the potentially flimsy premise, and he wrings real pathos from this tale of wounded souls finding one another. Even readers without their own furry friend will be moved. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Devastating and beautiful, by turns a fascinating book of animal psychology and a personal memoir of unrelenting trauma, it dares us to take a journey into love and pain…This is a tale of time and mortality and the link we share with the constant flux of the natural world…Written in poetic, mournful, and delicate prose, My Beloved Monster is a love story and a requiem.”

—The Wall Street Journal

“The most brilliant feline portrait in literary history.”

—People Magazine (Book of the Week)

"Excellent…Worth the emotional investment, and the tissues you will need by the end, to spend time with a writer and cat duo as extraordinary as Masha and Carr.”—Washington Post Book World

“My Beloved Monster is a loving and lovely, lay-it-all-on-the-line explication of one man’s fierce attachment.”—The New York Times

“Carr writes about cats with a tender vividness that might make you see your own pets through new eyes."—Los Angeles Times

“Within pages of starting this moving book, connoisseurs of fine prose may find themselves gasping with delight, as will cat lovers…One of the most powerful and beautiful grief narratives ever written, including all the memoirs about people.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“In writing that is as beautiful as it is unguarded, Caleb Carr tells the surprising and deeply affecting story of life with his remarkable cat Masha. It’s a book that will upend your assumptions about love, pain, commitment, cats, and probably the author himself. The whole experience, as a reader, is one I could not have imagined and roundly recommend.”
 —Mary Roach, Author of FUZZ

"Lively and moving....Even readers without their own furry friend will be moved."—Publishers Weekly

"A love story of the best, most ethereal kind...Tears will flow, and they will be warranted."—Booklist

From the Publisher

James Lurie shares the joyous and painful moments of an extraordinary life. Listeners meet Caleb Carr, the late author of the wildly successful novel THE ALIENIST, and his great love, Masha, a Siberian forest cat. Carr's father, Lucien, was a cofounder of the Beat Generation. Caleb suffered emotional and physical abuse from his alcoholic parents. Lurie movingly recounts Caleb's chaotic early life and the spirited cats that saved him. Listeners rejoice when he rescues majestic Masha, who was also abused by her so-called "family." Caleb and Masha "promise" each other to always be together as they age and become ill. Lurie's voice takes on a generous tone as Caleb provides suggestions for other cat owners based on his comprehensive knowledge. Audio highlights their unique bond. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2024 - AudioFile