Goodreads asked Tim Newton Anderson:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Tim Newton Anderson I got the ideas from a lot of different places, some of which are described in the introductions to individual stories. The title story was a combination of two things - the opening words came to me in a dream and that blended with a picture I had seen of Georges Perec with a cat on his shoulder. I had read most of Perec's work and was inspired by the way he wove his experiences in the Nazi occupation in an innovative way in his fiction so decided to tackle the issue of the holocaust in an oblique way. Not as well, but hopefully still effectively.

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