The Herald Sun summarized this book the best with the quote, "From the start, this is an emotional journey for author and reader." If you're not prepared to cry over Helen Brown's international bestseller, Cleo: The Cat Who Mended a Family, don't pick it up. However, if you want a story of love, survival, and life, and you love cats, you'll have to read this book. Some blurbs have compared this to Marley & Me. If the love of an animal can be compared, then that's fine. Marley & Me, and Dewey are both special books about unique animals. But, this book is unique in the tragedy and change covered in one story.Helen Brown lived in New Zealand with her husband and two sons, Sam and Rob. She was a columnist for a local paper, and her husband, Steve, was a radio officer on a ferry, away from home for a week at a time. Although they were drifting apart, they both loved their sons. So, when Sam and Rob picked out a kitten, too young to bring home, and Sam named her Cleo, Helen and Steve agreed to take her in a few months, although they weren't "cat people."
Helen describes the day that changed their lives. She says days are so similar, they just become routine. "The twenty-first of January 1983 started out that way. There were no hints this date would slam down on us and slice our lives permanently in two." There's no way to review this book and not say that Sam died tragically at the age of nine. While Helen raged and cried, Steve shut down. And, Rob, at six, had witnessed his brother's death.
This was a family in trouble. So, when the owner of Cleo showed up to turn her over, Helen wanted to refuse the kitten. But, Rob immediately claimed "Sam's kitten." And, how can a mother who lost one son refuse the other? Rob had been sleeping in his parents' room since his brother's death. Now, with a kitten to care for, he wanted to return to his room, offering to share his room with the kitten, so she wouldn't miss "her brothers and sisters." Even so, when the new kitten tore the house apart, and caused havoc, Helen was ready to return her, until one day she realized that she and Rob had laughed at Cleo, laughed for the first time since Sam's death.
As anyone who owns a cat knows, they're always entertaining, with unique personalities. And Cleo seemed to have a special gift of communicating with Rob. And, as Cleo grew, she brought new people into their lives, from special neighbors to friends for Rob, to people that would change the family entirely. Cleo would never take the place of Sam, and there is no recovering from such a loss, but Cleo showed Helen and her family how to go on with life. Rob said of Cleo, "She said she comes from a long line of cat healers."
There is no doubt this book will make you cry. The author acknowledges that her life was changed forever by her son's death. But, this cat, who appeared when the family needed her, seemed to step in so many times to move them into another stage. When Helen considered suicide, there was the kitten, blocking her way. Cleo welcomed new family members, and approved of new additions. When Rob was ill, she was the healer. There was always a special connection between Rob, the boy who witnessed his brother's death, and the cat who came to stay.
Helen Brown's broken heart will never heal. But, her story of Cleo and her family says a family, and a heart, can be mended. This book is beautiful in the story of a cat, and a family. And, there's beauty in Brown's recognition, "Great joy doesn't obliterate grief. Both can be encompassed at the same time." Cleo: The Cat Who Mended a Family, was the cat who enabled her to realize the joy in life, despite the grief.
Cleo: The Cat Who Mended a Family by Helen Brown. Kensington Publishing, ©2010. ISBN 9780806533032 (paperback), 272p.
*****
FTC Full Disclosure - The publicist sent me an ARC so I could participate in a blog tour for this book.
