A Satisfying Meal

Cat's Breakfast: Kurt Vonnegut Tribute by Juliana Rew

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Tribute anthologies can be disappointing: either the link between the stories and the work that inspired them is so tenuous that the spirit of the original is totally lacking, or they are rehashes with nothing new to offer. Thank goodness Cat's Breakfast is not like that!
The stories display a very Vonnegut-like sardonic humour and attitude to humanity's foibles and self-deceptions. Popular culture plays a large part, especially the gap between how society likes to portray itself and the realities, and how all our plans and best-intentions get stymied. Some of the most humorous stories were also the most moving.
Usually, when I read an anthology as soon as I've finished one story, I cannot resist starting the next, but the tales in Cat's Breakfast gave me too much to think about to race through them. Stories like Christopher Mark Rose's 'Emerging Grammars', 'The Confrontation Station' by Ryan Dull and '37' by Dan Koboldt demanded a closer look at accepted opinion and the unexpected consequences that the things we automatically think would be good might have.
My favourites out of the whole anthology are 'They Grow up So Fast' by Konstantine Paradias, and Vaughan Stanger's 'One Is One', although there is not one story that is not worth reading again.
Cat's Breakfast is a great read–pass it on!



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