Marcia Farrar and Mr. Whiskey Time-Travel to 1997

A whimsical romp morphs into a metaphysical quest in this rollicking time-travel adventure featuring a single mom and her supernatural cat. When forty-one-year-old Marcia Farrar's only son, Howie, leaves home for a prestigious fellowship in a hazardous part of the world, she is suddenly beset by unexpected complications. Her dog dies, its cremains go missing, her freezer is stolen, and her job as low-level support staff at Holliday College becomes increasingly unbearable. Add to this the fact that her foster sister and longtime frenemy is pestering her for details about her dead dog and her absent son. When a surprising event brings a supernaturally gifted gray cat into her life, everything changes, and Marcia sees that the past doesn't have to dictate the present or the future. Unfortunately, her son is in peril, and taking charge of her own life may mean endangering his. Ricocheting between eras, continents, and perspectives, this comic novel takes a playful (but dead serious) approach to the problems of morality, mortality, infinity, and middle age. In the gallery of fiction about single mothers/supernatural cats, this debut novel stands out for the surprising ways it spans the gaps between dark and absurdist comedy and stories of maternal love.