Sunday book pick: ‘Cat Brushing’, written by an octogenarian, takes delight in ageing
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“Ageing is often presented as an accumulation of disease, of discomforts, of wrinkles, but it is really a process of dispossession, of rights, of respect, of desire, of all those things you once so casually owned and enjoyed.”
Jane Campbell’s debut book, a collection of 13 short stories called Cat Brushing, was published in 2022, the year she turned 80. Two years later, she published her debut novel, Interpretations of Love. There’s a lesson here about it never being too late to do what you love, but instead, I would like to reflect on the book’s tremendous literary merit. Campbell only happens to be an octogenarian debut author, but what is more remarkable is her voice – sharp, witty, and unforgettable.
The lucky thirteen
Perhaps because of her own age, the protagonists of the 13 stories are also elderly women. Unlike most stories about the elderly that unfold in the past, those in Cat Brushing take stock of the present and anticipate the future. The narrative voices are in the first and third persons. The characters belong to the English upper class and are financially independent. At the heart of each of the 13 stories is an older woman. In some of these stories, the women have had to give up the comfort of...