Here in the Morongo Basin, we have a feline celebrity amongst us. Baba is the only cat ever officially approved for her own Amazon author page, and she’s got a new book out that re-tells history through cat eyes. Reporter Heather Clisby has details …
Yucca Valley resident and author, Paul Koudounaris, is the keeper of Baba, his feline roommate and lead author of the new book, “A Cat’s Tale: A Journey Through Feline History.” Though “dictated” to Koudounaris, Baba narrates noted periods of history while modeling costumes from her favorite eras.
Nicknamed the “Fox Mulder of the Art History Department” at UCLA, Koudounaris holds a PhD in Art History was always drawn to study “weird things” which lead to him publishing three books on the history of death. In researching his fourth book about pet cemeteries, Koudounaris found numerous animal stories that were compelling.
“I kept on coming across these wonderful stories that had just never really been told, especially about cats. Cats had just never gotten their due in history. There’s this dichotomy in the animal world that dogs are the brave ones and dog’s are man’s best friend and cats are just kind of capricious and just don’t care about us quite as much and it’s not true. And anyone who knows cats will tell you it’s the exact opposite. And I kept coming across these wonderful stories about cats and at the same time, my cat happens to be kind of a supermodel, like she’s known on the internet, she does cos-play. And I thought, ‘Well, there it is. Let’s put it all together. Let’s write a book on feline history but let her be the author. Place her as the narrator. Let her tell cat history, not let a human tell it, let her tell it. Take photos and let her play all the parts of all these historical roles she’s describing.”
The book begins with the Neolithic era right up to modern times, including Baba’s favorite period in feline history – the Golden Age of Ancient Egypt – and least favorite, when cats were burned at the stake along with alleged witches during the Salem trials.
“It’s starts when really cats and humans make this bond. We like to say as humans that we domesticated these animals but really, it’s untrue. It’s really the opposite. The animals allow themselves to be domesticated. That was certainly the case with cats. If you think you can domesticate these animals, go out and find yourself a bobcat and try to make it a pet. You really can’t. They have to be willing participants in this. So it starts back in the time when humans were developing agriculture and they were beset with rats. And the cats realized, well there are these rats and these mice that are feeding on this excess that the humans are growing so the cats started to gravitate around those early Neolithic villages. Eventually, the cats were providing a service, the humans didn’t want them to leave, and so the humans found a way to convince the cats to stay. And like I say, it started this partnership that exists to the present day.”
“A Cat’s Tale” is published by Holt/Macmillan and will be officially available for purchase online and in stores on November 10.
