REVIEW: We'll Prescribe You a Cat (book) by Syou Ishida, translated by E. Madison Shimoda

We'll Prescribe You a Cat is magical realism. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This is divided into sections by cat: Bee, then Margot, then Koyuki, then Tank and Tangerine, and finally Mimita. Each cat section is focused on a particular human who is dealing with issues at work or at home and who has heard through a friend of a friend of a friend that the Nakagyo Kokoro Clinic for the Soul is wonderfully helpful. Each person assumes this is a psychiatric clinic, and each is told by the doctor that the clinic isn't actually accepting new patients but that an exception will be made for them. The doctor then proceeds to prescribe them a cat that will somehow help them. The cat is handed over by a beautiful, icy, and somewhat disapproving nurse. Patients are given care instructions for the cats that resemble medication instructions and are told to come back to the clinic after a set amount of time to return their cat.

The patients featured include a salesman dealing with an abusive boss, a fifty-something year-old man annoyed by a cheerful new female colleague, a mother who has a habit of dismissing her child's troubles as unworthy of attention, a perfectionist handbag designer dealing with issues at both home and work, and a geika (Kyoto version of geisha) mourning the disappearance of her previous cat.

I didn't read much about this book prior to starting it and wasn't really sure what to expect. I was a little put off by the idea of a doctor giving people living creatures as "prescriptions" for their problems, and the start of the first story didn't reassure me much. Shuta, the salesman, was handed Bee with no warning and only the most basic care instructions. He'd never previously cared for a cat and didn't even live in a place that allowed them. Then there was the assurance that the cat would somehow help Shuta with his problems - not exactly a great reason to hand someone a pet out of the blue.

In practice, a lot of these "cat prescriptions" played out like temporarily fostering a cat prior to committing to adoption, albeit without the person initially having any intention of getting a cat. There was also a significant thread of fantasy running through the whole thing that made it somewhat easier to accept than "random doctor pushing cats on people as solutions to their problems." In the first section, Bee's presence magically led to events happening that the doctor couldn't possibly have predicted. The second section, with Margot, deepened the mystery surrounding the doctor and his clinic, the third section included something seemingly impossible, and the fourth pretty much confirmed that there was something fantastical going on.

The final section included some interesting revelations but didn't fully resolve the book's overall mysteries. I assume, for example, that the patient Dr. Nikke was waiting for was Kajiwara, but the book ended without him ever stopping by. I was also still left with questions about Nikke and Chitose and how/why they were doing what they were doing. There's apparently another book after this one, so maybe it'll answer my questions?

All in all, this was an easy and enjoyable read despite my issues with it.