I & Claudius: Travels With My Cat - Hardcover

Clare De Vries

3.64

219 ratings by Goodreads

9781582340548: I & Claudius: Travels With My Cat

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582340544 ISBN 13: 9781582340548

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 1999

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Clare de Vries fulfills her dream of traveling the States when she decides to quit London with her ailing, beloved cat, Claudius, for a final fling (he wouldn't be allowed back into the UK without a six-month quarantine, so they decide to spend his final months on the road...)

It was a bumpy, unpredictable ride from the dubious glamours of Manhattan down to the Appalachians, from the Smoky Mountains to Nashville. Graceland led to New Orleans where Voodoo did more for Claudius's kidneys than the vet could. Claude (to his friends) enjoyed Cajun music, Texas rodeo and trekked the Grand Canyon, indulging in Kentucky Fried Chicken along the way (hell, his days were numbered--might as well make the best of them...) At last, the Pacific wind in his whiskers, Claude wrapped up his five-month sojourn with Clare on a boat outside San Francisco. The characters along the way were a startling crew, from brown bear to astronaut, from psychic to porn star. And, as crazy as the idea may have seemed to start with, and crazier still to have followed through, at the story's center lay something deep and real about our dreams and loyalties and about going away to find out who we really are.

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Review:

The question isn't, "What happens when a young British woman travels the southern United States with a 19-year-old cat?" The question is, "What happens when bad-news-in-stiletto-heels Clare de Vries does that?" The answer is unbridled hilarity. Pushing 30, De Vries is wallowing in an emotional void from the recent death of her mother when she arrives on the East Coast with her cat Claudius, a shipped-over sports car, and a fantasy of finding happiness in America. Her dreams are continually smashed: the car breaks down, the cat soon follows, and felicity is elusive as she encounters some of the most wacked-out creatures to ever call George Washington their founding father. The feisty troublemaker gets booted out of hotels, museums, parks, and planes for traveling with her feline friend, and is a chronic magnet for weirdness, be it in the form of felons, con men, psychics, or ghosts. The absurdity that De Vries calls her on-the-road life reaches only one high point in Vegas, when disguised as Cleopatra she ditches a stranger from whom she inadvertently borrowed, and immediately lost, $5,000. Interspersed within the insane and sometimes harrowing escapades that unfold on her six-month road trek are touching emotional insights about pets, loved ones, and solo travel that fill out what might otherwise be simply an entirely entertaining albeit madcap book. Graphic, sometimes shocking, and sarcastically hip, this is not a book for your cat-loving grandmother, but a wild example of what might happen when a young, slightly neurotic female overdosing on chutzpah heads out (nearly) alone to shake boredom from her life. In that goal at least, De Vries unabashedly succeeds. --Melissa Rossi

From the Publisher:

"very enjoyable and unpredictable memoir...Anyone who has ever loved a cat will enjoy this engaging narrative." (Booklist)
"In the unlikely event that Hunter S. Thompson and Bridget Jones ever crossed paths in an alternate universe, Clare de Vries would be their alien love child, leaving London behind to cross the United States in a Buick LeSabre with her aging cat, Claudius." (Book)
"saucy, racy, pleasingly impolite...Think Thelma & Louise, only starring Bridget Jones and Morris the Cat." (Mademoiselle)

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