Poets Square A memoir in thirty cats

Courtney Gustafson

Book - 2025

"What could accidentally moving into a house with thirty feral cats teach you about going viral, surviving capitalism, and the importance of community? Kind of a lot, actually. When Courtney Gustafson moved into a rental house in the Poets Square neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, she didn't know that the property came with thirty feral cats. Focused only on her own survival-in a new relationship, during a pandemic, with poor mental health and a job that didn't pay enough--Courtney was reluctant to spend any of her own time or money caring for the wayward animals. But the cats--their pleading eyes, their ribs showing, the new kittens born in the driveway--didn't give her a choice. She had no idea about the grief and hardsh...ip of animal rescue, the staggering size of the problem in neighborhoods across the country. And she couldn't have imagined how that struggle-towards an ethics of care, of individuals trying their best amidst spectacularly failing systems--would help pierce a personal darkness she'd wrestled for with much of her life. She also didn't expect that the TikTok and Instagram accounts she created to share the quirky personalities of the wild, but lovable cats, like Mushroom Risotto, Bubbles, Goldie, and Sad Boy, would end up saving her home. Courtney writes toward a vision of community--from the dark alleys where she feeds feral cats, from inside the tragically neglected homes where she climbs over piles of trash and occasionally animals, from her own driveway with the cats she loves and must sometimes let go. Compelling and tender, The Cats of Poets Square is as much about cats as it is about the urgency of care, community, and a little bit of dumb hope, in a world that can feel insurmountably broken"--

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2nd Floor New Shelf 636.88/Gustafson (NEW SHELF) Due May 20, 2025
Subjects
Genres
Autobiographies
Published
New York : Crown [2025]
Language
English
Main Author
Courtney Gustafson (author)
Edition
First edition
Item Description
Interior chapter-opening art by Christina K"--Verso page.
Physical Description
241 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
ISBN
9780593727614
  • Poets square
  • My tiny tender heart
  • Hunger
  • Men call cats sluts
  • Sad Boy & Lola
  • Mothering
  • Bubbles
  • Viral cat videos & the American dream
  • In this one the cats don't survive
  • Trash
  • Letting myself go
  • The hotdog man
  • The pigeon house
  • An incomplete list of names I've given cats.
Review by Booklist Review

Sad Boy and Lola, Monkey, and Mr. Bigbutt are just a few of the feral cats featured on Gustafson's social media pages, @poetsquarecats. Gustafson had no idea that after moving into her new home in Tucson's Poets Square neighborhood, the 30 feral cats living on and around the property would change the trajectory of her life and career. After months of haphazardly tossing kibble at the wayward ferals and lamenting over how best to care for them on her meager nonprofit salary, Gustafson took some chances, learning about TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) efforts and feral cat care just as the COVID-19 pandemic struck. In alternating story lines--one often connected to a specific cat and the other to Gustafson's life experiences--she shares her battles with mental health, chronic illness, and quarter-life crisis. As she contemplates her life and internet virality, Gustafson grapples with perception by the online masses, the significant and empowering love of an animal, misogyny in rescue work, the financial strain of pet ownership, the ache of animal loss, and most importantly, how to develop a community. Her riveting and emotional vignettes are loaded with humanity and all the important lessons we can learn from little creatures just trying to survive.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Gustafson's tender debut details how she came to care for a colony of feral cats in Tucson, Ariz. Gustafson, who grew up "loving cats so much that I often pretended to be one," and her boyfriend, Tim, moved into a small house in Tucson's Poets Square neighborhood in 2020. After her first night there, she noticed and began naming a collection of cats who circled the property, realizing "right away it would consume me." She decided to launch an Instagram account focused on the animals, initially as a means of keeping in touch with her father, who lived on the other side of the country. As the account's popularity grew, however, Gustafson came to realize that, after having many of her academic and professional achievements chalked up to her conventional beauty, she craved the "attention and praise for something that I could be certain was wholly unrelated to my looks." While navigating her sudden online fame during the Covid pandemic, Gustafson began to notice how much easier it was for strangers to express concern for the cats--including ringleader Goldie and friendly Dr. Big Butt--than their struggling human neighbors. Such insights elevate the proceedings beyond a collection of diverting diary entries. One need not be a cat person to be enchanted by this. Illus. Agent: Caroline Eisenmann, Frances Goldin Literary. (Apr.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A cat lover's chronicle. Cat rescuer Gustafson makes her book debut with a warm memoir about loneliness, love, and her unexpected connection to feral cats in the Tucson neighborhood of Poets Square, where she moved with her boyfriend during the Covid-19 pandemic. At times, tending to 30 howling, mewling, starving cats felt overwhelming: "I was spending a lot of time crying, a lot of time feeling like my heart was too small and too tender, a lot of time wishing I could disengage, wishing I had not been the one to find these cats." Besides feeding them, she took them to be neutered to prevent litters of kittens added to the population--not only around her house, but in other neighborhoods, too. She became known as the cat lady, the person others turned to when they found injured cats, or just too many. Without quite knowing why, she posted adorable photos of the cats on social media; surprising to her, the Instagram site attracted followers and contributions. When she filmed a video about cooking a miniature Thanksgiving dinner for stray cats, the TikTok post went viral. Rescuing cats and working at a food bank, Gustafson discovered that the experiences of being unhoused, friendless, and hungry were not limited to cats. Just as the felines outside her house fought for the food she put out for them, the people waiting hours for food distribution often lashed out in anger at not being able to afford "the most basic of resources" to keep themselves and their families alive. While her cat rescue work has given her "a community, a sense of rootedness" and purpose, it has also given her "an intimate knowledge of suffering, a witnessing," she writes, "I never meant to inherit." Affecting testimony to the need for caring. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.