From acclaimed author Edeet Ravel comes a profound and heart-wrenching story that captures the essence of grief and hope in the midst of tragedy.

Single mother Elise is completely devoted to her eleven-year-old son; he is her whole world. But that world is destroyed in one terrifying moment when her son is killed in a car accident just outside their home. Suddenly alone, surrounded by memories, Elise faces a future that feels unspeakably bleak—and pointless.

Lost, angry and desolate, Elise rejects everyone who tries to reach out to her. But as despair threatens to engulf her, she realizes, to her horror, that she cannot join her son: she must take care of his beloved cat. At first she attempts to carry out this task entirely by herself, shut away from a frightening new reality that seems surreal and incomprehensible. But isolation proves to be impossible, and before long others insinuate themselves into her life—friends, enemies, colleagues, neighbours, a former lover—bringing with them the fragile beginnings of survival.

Powerfully moving and deeply humane, The Cat is an unforgettable novel about the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit.

Edeet was born on a kibbutz and lived in Israel until the age of seven. She has a PhD in Jewish studies from McGill and graduate degrees in literature and creative writing. She has taught at McGill, Concordia and John Abbott College. In addition to her award-winning novels for adults, Edeet has written Held, a YA thriller that was nominated for the CLA Young Adult Book of the Year, the Saskatchewan Willow Award, the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association Top Forty and the Arthur Ellis Best Juvenile Crime Award. Her YA novel The Saver has been adapted for film by Wiebke von Carolsfeld; the film has garnered prizes around the globe. Edeet lives in Guelph, Ontario, and gets her best ideas at the Y swimming pool. Her name is pronounced ee-DEET.

Edeet Ravel's profile page

"Once I began turning pages, I could hardly put it down. [The Cat] is a precisely realized character study that amounts to an excruciating portrait of maternal grief." - National Post

"In her evocation of grief, and the terrible loneliness of grief that is unfathomable to those who stand at a little distance from it, Edeet Ravel is utterly, heartbreakingly convincing. And in her rendering of the idiosyncratic nature of grief, that strikes each of us differently, she is poignant and compelling." - Joyce Carol Oates