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A retaliatory entry in the cat-book sweepstakes quickly appeared from bottom-line think tankers. A new entry which has a claw-hold on the bestseller lists is Cat's Revenge: More than 101 Uses for Dead People. It is the product of Philip Lief, 36. A book packager and author who lives with his wife and cat in Southfield, Mass. He presents human corpses—and parts thereof—that serve gleeful felines as life rafts, bowling balls and stamp-licking machines. His next attempt to amuse in the cat-dollar sweepstakes will appear in March, Cat's Revenge II, and in April, How to Make Love to a Cat.
Ex-Folk Singer Skip Morrow, 29, spoofs livelier kitties. The Second Official I Hate Cats Book employs a perplexed, Woody Allen-style feline as a polo ball, a terrified moose-hunting decoy and a freaked-out monastery candle snuffer. Morrow, who lives in southern Vermont with his two cats, Nina and Lucy, does not hate cats but rather what he feels people have made of them. Human avarice, not atrocity, is the root of the problem. Says Morrow: "There's so much schmaltz from the pet industry. You see it on TV and in stores. My work is a comment on the state of merchandising, rather than whether cats should live or die. Next time, I'm going to make fun of people."