The Blanket Cats

Kiyoshi Shigematsu

Is three days with a cat enough to change your life? The troubled and anxious of Tokyo are desperate to find out. They all have their problems - and they all want to believe that a feline companion from a unique pet shop can help them find a solution. But there are rules: they must be returned after three days, and they must always sleep in their own familiar blankets. In The Blanket Cats, we meet seven such customers, including a couple struggling with infertility, a middle-aged woman on the run from the police, and two families in very different circumstances simply seeking joy. But like all their kind, the blanket cats are mysterious creatures with their own unknowable agendas, who delight in confounding expectations. And perhaps what their hosts are looking for isn't what they really need. Three days may not be enough to change your life. But it might be enough to change how you see it. Translated from the Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood