Fiction
June 2020
The Cat and the City
by Nick Bradley
**5 reprints, 10,000 copies sold in 2months in lockdown** A stray tortoiseshell cat weaves in and out of seemingly disparate lives across Tokyo in the build up to the 2020 Olympics. The cat sees all, and where the cat leads the humans will follow... The 30 million inhabitants of Tokyo rub shoulders every day – but do they really see each other? Among them: a tattoo artist beholden to traditional methods is caught up in a mind-bending commission; a homeless man is squatting in an abandoned capsule hotel; an overworked taxi driver is still grieving his wife’s death; an American translator is struggling to adjust to her new big city life; a shutin hermit is afraid to leave his house; a video game champion is searching for romance. Lives touched by isolation, loneliness, and sadness. But in one of the largest megacities in the world, not everything is as disconnected as it seems. A mythical cat, shapeshifting and wonderous, dances through the streets of Tokyo. And, as it does so, it brushes up against the lives of those who live there and connects them in unexpected and, at times, magical ways. THE CAT AND THE CITY is a treasure of a novel; disturbing, delightful and formally playful, it is at once a meditation on modern existence and a lithe thrill-ride through the less-glimpsed back alleys of Tokyo.
