Penny A graphic memoir

Penny is a cat who has Deep Thoughts. A tortie, rescued (or kidnapped, depending on whom you ask) from the mean streets and given a life of comfort and--according to Penny--one doomed to mediocrity in an apartment with two Humans. Through short vignettes, most only as long as a single page, the reader follows Penny as she contemplates the meaninglessness of life. This is not to say that Penny does nothing but gaze wistfully out of windows, longing for her life on the street. She also displays all the attributes any cat owner would expect to see: staring at a spot on the wall as if communicating with it, racing around the house for no apparent reason, stretching with claws out to make sure you remember she's there. Penny and her surroundings are grounded in reality, with Stevens' detailed illustrations, including exceptionally well-done crosshatching and shading, pulling the reader into her world. A book best read in short bursts rather than straight through, this is sure to delight cat lovers.

"Am I in denial that I am living in a prison?" muses Penny, the pet cat of Stevens (The Winner), in this gracefully drawn, intermittently amusing "graphic memoir" imagined from the feline's perspective. Penny reveals her philosophical inner life along with her deeply mercurial nature, and the humor stems from this duality. She contrasts her days living on the streets as a stray with her present life as a seemingly domesticated house cat, forever torn between longing for the "glory of the next grand adventure" and her comfortable day-to-day with her humans (whom she observes with mild disdain). For example, she fantasizes about murdering a seagull perched outside, but moments later mentions she doesn't need more than "eighteen hours of windowsill sleeping" to be happy. Stevens employs his detailed and stylistic realism to nice comic effect, especially during a flight of fancy when Penny imagines herself traversing another dimension, "one with the cosmos." The emphasis on Penny's feral impulses results in a kind of satire of the typical cat-humor collection ("Am I watching the people sleep to be sure they're ok? Or am I waiting for them to die so I can eat them?"). Stevens's clever send-up should delight the feline faithful. Agent: Meg Thompson, Thompson Literary. (Apr.)