by Gwen Cooper
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GWEN COOPER is the author of the novel Diary of a South Beach Party Girl. A Miami native, she spent five years working in nonprofit administration, marketing, and fundraising. She coordinated volunteer activities on behalf of organizations including Pet Rescue, the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind, the Miami Rescue Mission, and His House Children’s Home, and she initiated Reading Pen Pals, an elementary-school-based literacy program in Miami’s Little Haiti. Gwen currently lives in Manhattan with her husband, Laurence. She also lives with her three perfect cats—Scarlett, Vashti, and Homer—who aren’t impressed with any of it.
www.gwencooper.com
Homer’s Odyssey is a work of nonfiction. Some names and identifying details have been changed.
Copyright © 2009 by Gwen Cooper
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DELACORTE PRESS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cooper, Gwen. Homer’s odyssey: a fearless feline tale, or how I learned about love and life with a blind wonder cat / Gwen Cooper.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33874-1
1. Blind cats—Biography. 2. Human-animal relationships. I. Title.
SF986.B56C66 2009
636.8092′2
2009017602
www.bantamdell.com
v3.0
Table of Contents
FOREWORDBY PATRICIA KHULY, VMD
PROLOGUEThe Cat Who Lived
Socket to Me
What Do You See in an Eyeless Cat?
The First Day of the Rest of His Life
The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee
The New Kid
Don’t Be Happy. Worry.
Gwen Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
The Ballad ofEl Mocho
“Dogs and Cats, Living Together …”
Running on Faith
A One-Bedroom of One’s Own
Pet Sounds
Lord of the Flies
Mucho Gato
My Homer/My Self
Cats and the Single Girl
“The Pussy Galore Tour”
Cool For Cats
A Hole in the Sky
September 12, 2001
None So Blind
A Canticle for Vashowitz
Intimations of Immortality
Reader, I Married Him
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
