Russell Banks with Bodo in Princeton, New Jersey. “In Romanian (or maybe it’s Albanian), ‘Bodo’ means ‘Ordinary Joe,’ which suits him perfectly. He’s an American tabby, a true vernacular cat with a multicultural pedigree. He’s expressive without being especially intelligent and thus a boon companion for solitary work.”Saul Bellow, Brattleboro, Vermont: In addition to winning the Nobel Prize in literature, the novelist was an accomplished recorder player. “Moose is a fine black tom with a white throat who looks like a maitre d’hotel. Once a castoff kitten discovered clinging to a screen door, he shares my bed daily.”Rita Mae Brown, Charlottesville, Virginia. “The cat is Ibid, an alley cat (fancy name: domestic ‘shorthair’) not yet one year old. She is being trained to follow in the paw-steps of her mentor, Sneaky Pie.”In the dressing room of his Manhattan townhouse, Walter Cronkite offers the family cat, Dancer, its breakfast.E.L. Doctorow on the front stairs of his house in New Rochelle, New York, with Kitty, a female Russian Gray cat.M.F.K. Fisher in Sonoma, California, with Charlie. “I think that elderly female writers hiding behind their Siamese cats should be forbidden by law.”Gail Godwin in Stone Ridge, New York, with Wretchie, “a nice dark cat who came to the door one night looking for food.” Gail has a new book coming out with Bloomsbury called Getting To Know Death.Edward Gorey loved cats more than people and in his house cats could do what they wanted. For example, sleeping on his beard when he was watching TV or on his shoulders when he worked at his desk.Elaine Kaufman, owner of the famous Elaine’s restaurant, with her Persian cat Baby. Generally up until 6:00 a.m. hobnobbing with her night-crawling clientele, Kaufman would lounge in bed until noon.Diane Keaton in her Manhattan apartment with Buster, an Abyssinian.Ursula Le Guin and Lorenzo in Portland, Oregon. “Cats know exactly where they begin and end. When they walk slowly out the door that you are holding open for them, and pause, leaving their tail just an inch or two inside the door, they know it. They know you have to keep holding the door open. That is why their tail is there.”Madeleine L’Engle at home in Goshen, Connecticut, with Tatania.Elizabeth McCracken in Somerville, Massachusetts. “Tiger’s favorite place in the world is on my lap when I’m trying to get work done, though sometimes she sits on top of my chair like a vulture, or an editor. She has only two bad habits: she bites me every day, and she sometimes leaves her catnip in the middle of my bed.”Joyce Carol Oates, Princeton, New Jersey: “Christabel is a querulous but beautiful calico Persian who helps her mistress write by meditating intensely and being non verbal.” I hope you’ll notice the barbell which a writer as prolific as JCO needs to keep her arms in shape.Anthony Powell in his country home in Somerset, a Regency mini-mansion called The Chantry (near Bath). Often referred to as England’s eminent gentleman of letters, his library reflected the elegance portrayed in his twelve-volume novel series “A Dance to the Music of Time.”Ishmael Reed in Berkeley California with his muses — his cat Ba and a totem from Easter Island.Dinner time for Gore Vidal’s cat named Baby at La Rondinaia in Ravello, Italy. Inseparable, Baby would later move with Gore to Hollywood Hills.Wendy Wasserstein in New York City: Al Hirschfeld drawings above and her cats Antonia and Rockette on the dining table. The Maine Coons were a gift from Forest Sawyer.Colson Whitehead in his Brooklyn apartment with Tricky — “Great cat, damn good copy editor.”Tennessee Williams by his pool in Key West, Florida. Sabbath was a black cat whose predatory behavior (mauling lizards) caused a constant annoyance to Williams.P.G. Wodehouse and his wife Ethel enjoying afternoon tea at home in Remsenburg, New York. The creator of Bernie Wooster and Jeeves had this to say: “Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods. This makes them prone to set themselves up as critics and censors of the frail and erring human beings whose lot they share.”Ragdoll cat Benjamin Button appeared draped around Taylor Swift’s neck on the musician’s Time 2023 Person of the Year cover.
