Included below is the synopsis of Caleb Carr’s memoir, My Beloved Monster, which was published by Little, Brown in 2024. Selected critical reception has also been included. For summaries and selected critical reception of Caleb Carr’s other fiction and non-fiction works, please use the menu.
My Beloved Monster Summary
Publisher’s Blurb
The #1 bestselling author of The Alienist, Caleb Carr, tells the extraordinary story of Masha, a half-wild rescue cat who fought off a bear, tackled Caleb like a linebacker—and bonded with him as tightly as any cat and human possibly can.
Caleb Carr has had special relationships with cats since he was a young boy in a turbulent household, famously peopled by the founding members of the Beat Generation, where his steadiest companions were the adopted cats that lived with him both in the city and the country. As an adult, he has had many close feline companions, with relationships that have outlasted most of his human ones. But only after building a three-story home in rural, upstate New York did he enter into the most extraordinary of all of his cat pairings: Masha, a Siberian Forest cat who had been abandoned as a kitten, and was languishing in a shelter when Caleb met her. She had hissed and fought off all previous carers and potential adopters, but somehow, she chose Caleb as her savior.
For the seventeen years that followed, Caleb and Masha were inseparable. Masha ruled the house and the extensive, dangerous surrounding fields and forests. When she was hurt, only Caleb could help her. When he suffered long-standing physical ailments, Masha knew what to do. Caleb’s life-long study of the literature of cat behavior, and his years of experience with previous cats, helped him decode much of Masha’s inner life. But their bond went far beyond academic studies and experience. The story of Caleb and Masha is an inspiring and life-affirming relationship for readers of all backgrounds and interests—a love story like no other.
My Beloved Monster Critical Reception
Within pages of starting this moving book, connoisseurs of fine prose may find themselves gasping with delight, as will cat lovers … One of the most powerful and beautiful grief narratives ever written, including all the memoirs about people.
Like all good memoirs — and this is an excellent one — “My Beloved Monster” is not always for the faint of heart. Because life is not for the faint of heart. But it is worth the emotional investment, and the tissues you will need by the end, to spend time with a writer and cat duo as extraordinary as Masha and Carr.
‘My Beloved Monster’ is a loving and lovely, lay-it-all-on-the-line explication of one man’s fierce attachment.
A love story of the best, most ethereal kind.
Lively and moving….even readers without their own furry friend will be moved.