The Cat Man of Darby Road

The Cat Man of Darby Road is an homage to 20 feral cats the author cared for over a 20-year period. It is an elegy and a timely and urgent collection of personal writing where cats are not only preternatural creatures that carry their own powers but also the vehicle for contemplation of greater existence. Nayeri’s writing holds the lyrical alongside the bio-ethical and historical as he moves the reader across time and the landscapes of Tehran of the 1950s and 1960s , all the way to California in the twenty-first century, conjuring an empathy that brings humanitarian values in line with ecologically-aware values indispensible for resolving the social and ecological crises of the twenty-first century.