Homer's Odyssey

I first heard about this book while I was at the Publishing Institute at the University of Denver two summers ago and have wanted to read it ever since. Last month, I finally borrowed it from my friend Jenny. Since I'm going to give it back to her when I see her this weekend, I thought I'd go ahead and take this rainy afternoon opportunity to write about it!

Homer's Odyssey: 

A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned 

About Love and Life with A Blind Wonder Cat

by Gwen Cooper

Homer's Odyssey is a memoir about Gwen Cooper, but it's really a story about her kitten Homer.

When Gwen was in her twenties, she was contacted by her local vet about maybe adopting this kitten that had been abandoned at her clinic. The four-week-old kitten had had a virulent eye infection that required the vet to surgically remove both of his eyes, and his family had decided they couldn't handle taking care of him.

When the vet told Gwen about the kitten, she warned her that he would probably never really amount to much. They warned her that he would, in short, be an underachiever.

He was anything but. Without his sight, Homer's other senses sharpened dramatically. He could leap five feet in the air and catch a fly, he could scale seven-foot bookshelves with ease, he could case and memorize a new floor plan in minutes. He was a wonder cat.

What followed was an amazing adventure that would take Gwen, Homer, and her two other cats, Vashti and Scarlett, from their home in Florida to NYC. Together they would survive an attempted break-in, 9/11, boyfriends, sickness, and all sorts of other things. Through it all, Homer's unfailing sense of curiosity and adventure never failed to entertain and comfort.

Homer's Odyssey is not just a book for cat people. Sure, I loved reading about all of Homer's crazy antics because he reminds me so much of Little Kitty (aka Skits), and his love of being scratched and petted (which sends Homer into "veritable convulsions of delight") which reminds me so forcibly of Frisk, and when Gwen describes the interactions between her three cats, it reminds me of when Snickers was a kitten and how she used to terrorize Frisky and Figaro. 

But I think that anyone would love this book because the story is so good and because it helps you remember that miracles are still possible.

Read it! I know you'll love Homer just as much as I did.

Can't Get Enough?

Check out these other pet friendly memoirs...

Grayson by Lynne Cox — seventeen-year-old Lynn Cox was almost finished her training session in the California ocean (she's a big swimmer and at the time this happened, had already swum the English Channel twice) when she felt something strange in about the water. It turned out to be an eighteen-foot baby gray whale who had lost it's mother. Rather than risk the whale swimming towards the shore and beaching itself, Lynne took it upon herself to keep swimming with the whale (named Grayson) until he could be reunited with his mom. This 176 page memoir is a quick read, but a great story about facing insurmountable odds and beating them. 

Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien — a highly informative and enjoyable memoir about a woman who adopts and raises a baby owl. Very similar to Homer's Odyssey.