A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Exquisite... a beautiful book, one of the finest meditations on animal companionship that I have ever read' Kathryn Hughes, Guardian An instant New York Times bestseller, this is an unforgettable story about love, loss and redemption from a highly acclaimed writer Caleb Carr lived with cats ever since he was a young boy. He grew up in a turbulent household – where famous Beat poets, artists and addicts came and went – and his steadiest companions were pets. Since then he had many 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 encounter someone extraordinary: Masha, a Siberian Forest cat who had been abandoned as a kitten and was languishing in a shelter. She had hissed and fought off all previous carers and potential adopters, but somehow, she chose him. For the seventeen years that followed, Caleb and Masha were inseparable. Masha ruled the
