Waiting for Gertrude: A Graveyard Gothic [Hardcover]

Bill Richardson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2003

In Paris's Pere-Lachaise cemetery lie the bones of many renowned departed. It is also home to a large number of stray cats. Now, what if by some strange twist of fate, the souls of the famous were reborn in the cats with their personalities intact? There's Maria Callas, a wilful and imperious diva, wailing late into the night. Earthy, bawdy chanteuse Edith Piaf is a foul-mouthed washerwoman. Oscar Wilde is hopelessly in love with Jim Morrison who sadly does not return his affections. Frederic Chopin is as melancholic and deeply contemplative as ever, and in honor of the tradition of leaving love letters at his tomb, he is now the cemetery's postmaster general. Last but not least, Marcel Proust is trying to solve the mystery behind some unusual thefts - someone has stolen Rossini's glass eye and Sarah Bernhardt's leg. Told in a series of amusing set pieces and intercepted letters, this is a delicious tale of intrigue, unrequited love, longstanding quarrels, character assassinations, petty spats, and sorcery that builds to a steady climax at the cats' annual Christmas pageant.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Canadian Praise for Waiting for Gertrude:

"A fanciful and highly amusing novel...Only Bill Richardson could create such an engaging romp and such original characters. This hilarious tale is wildly original."
- Packet & Times

"Richardson brings his intelligent wit to the page in this fantastic tale...The relationships between the famous and infamous characters, love, passion and a few missing items all adds to a mystery that comes to an impressive climax. With his imagination at full throttle, Richardson has created a novel that is both witty and highly entertaining."
- Grande Prairie

"A delightful, funny read for a gray day."
- Nanaimo Daily News

"Richardson savours double-entendres, puns, and send-ups. This is a catty graveyard in form as well as substance. Yet through it run Richardson's thoughtfulness, literary intelligence, and affection for his subjects. This is the same elegantly gentle subversion that hooked people who read Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast."
- Georgia Straight

"Richardson writes convincingly of the feline world, and his affection for cats is apparent...[He] brings considerable skill of characterization to his feline community."
- Quill & Quire

"Waiting for Gertrude is a fantasy with a great sense of fun...Wonderful and unusual...A funny and moving work that focuses on devotion and longing."
-Uptown

"Comic, clever and slightly ribald...Full of wordplay and double-entendre."
- The Vancouver Sun

About the Author

Bill Richardson is a very popular writer and radio personality in Canada. His other books include Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast (winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humor) and Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast Pillow Book (winner of a B.C. Book Award).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 184 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312318685
• ISBN-13: 978-0312318680
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #245,680 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #36 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Cat Sleuths

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Part romance, part fantasy, and part satire, October 1, 2003

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Waiting for Gertrude: A Graveyard Gothic (Hardcover)

Alice B. Tolkas was born in San Francisco. She eventually left the States to live with her love Gertrude Stein in Paris. Over twenty years after Gertrude died, Alice, who mourned her loss all that time, finally joins her beloved. Both are buried in the renowned Paris Pere-Lachaise Cemetery.

However, Alice fails to catch up to Gertrude wherever she is. Instead she learns why the cemetery seems to be a haven for stray cats when she is reincarnated as a feline. She soon realizes that other famous souls buried here have been reborn as cats, but alas none are her beloved Gertrude, the only person to light her fire. All she does is pass time, eats the food brought by Ondine the Spay queen, and avoids the sorcery of some of her spookier peers. For Alice is WAITING FOR GERTRUDE to join feline heaven.

Fans who appreciate a novel that is extremely weird but humorous and satirical will enjoy the odd WAITING FOR GERTRUDE. The two paragraphs above concentrate on the title player for review convenience (moi that is). However, there are several other subplots involving famous deceased that readers will be Wilde about lighting a funeral pyre and pitying poor Abelard, etc. The story line never takes itself seriously yet paints a strong message about positive relationships are important while long term quarrels, spats and everything ugly in life is a waste of time. Part romance, part fantasy, and part satire, the Monty Python crowd will be perfect for this insane look at the afterlife.

Harriet Klausner

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An Intelllectual Fantasy, May 27, 2004

By 

V. Marshall (North Fork, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Waiting for Gertrude: A Graveyard Gothic (Hardcover)

I picked up this book after having visited the graveyards of Paris and falling in love with the artful serenity they exude.

At times witty, charming and even historical this little story takes a visit to a French graveyard into a whole other world. Famous people who reside in death at the Pere-Lachaise Cimetiere in Paris are finding theselves reincarnated into stray cats. Bill Richardson is loyal to the original historical figures and allows all their known eccentricities to remain alive within the cats. Alice B. Tolkas pines away for the return of her beloved Gertrude Stein, Jim Morrison is a swaggering sexy tomcat, Fontaine describes the cats with great poetic harmonies, Oscar Wilde falls in love with Morrison, Isadora Duncan still dances in the moonlight with ribbons, Colette still exudes desire, Maria Callas is still quite the diva, Sarah Bernhardt the consummate actress, and Proust becomes a reculsive private eye, just to name a few.

I rated this book with only 3 stars because it is a bit complex to read. The style is chaotic, bouncing around from letter, to narration, to poetry and more letters. The writing is littered with uncommon words that leave you feeling ignorant if you don't take the time to look them up. The characters are complex, of course they should be, and halfway through the book I stopped to refresh my memory on who was who before continuing on. I recommend a quickie refresher course on interesting French figures before beginning to read this story only because it allows you to grasp all the subtle nuances as you go along. All in all a GREAT idea had it been toned down to the masses but a superb book for literary snobs and the French aficionado. My favorite conversation in the book is between Oscar Wilde and Alice B. Tolkas (as cats), "Never disparage a surface. Nothing recommends beauty more than superficiality. Real beauty walks through the world uncluttered and unmasked. It dosen't hide in the earth like a truffle, attendant on the tender mercies of a passing pig." Bravo, Bill Richardson for awakening the dead!!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I suspect I know some of these cats, November 9, 2008

By 

William Courson "William Courson" (Montclair, New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Waiting for Gertrude: A Graveyard Gothic (Hardcover)

If you love cats, and you love France, and you have an extremely peculiar sense of humor and an appreciation for the absurd, I think you'll love this book. You may even adore it.

Waiting for Gertrude is set in Paris' gargantuan Pere Lachaise cemetery, where the souls of some of the notables buried therein have returned to Earth (translated, to use their term) as cats. A befurred Alice B. Toklas (the book's narrator) is waiting, and waiting, and waiting for her dear Gertrude Stein to reincarnate (translate) while Oscar Wilde pines and whines and preens hoping to attract the affection of his beloved Jim Morrison ("Jamz"), a ferocious, kitten-devouring three-testicled tomcat. All the while, quadriped versions of Isadora Duncan and Edith Piaf are making all kinds of merry hell for the other feline residents of the cemetery who include:

Jean de la Fontaine, the French fabulist returned now as a second-rate tour guide who insists on delivering his lectures in iambic pentameter, and whose poems introduce the various characters and situations;

Modigliani - then as now, a great painter;

Rossini - an aged and quite senile cat who cannot remember he was once a composer;

Collette - a high-class Persian cat of aristocratic ownership who followed a randy tomcat from her wealthy home to the cemetery, and now a noted teacher of yoga;

Chopin - the once-composer and now Per Lachaise's Postmaster General, where the cats have learned how to write and do write often;

Sarah Bernhardt - still an actress despite losing a leg;

Marcel Proust - a Private Investigator investigating a series of mysterious thefts taking place over the course of the novel and whose head is often - quite literally - stuck up his nethermost orifice in search of inspiration;

Heloise and Abelard - back on Earth as kitties who are, respectively, a highend caterer and "lifestyle consultant" and a publicist; and,

Ondine - the only human character, known as the "Spay Queen;" the cats' arch-nemesis and an enthusiastic proponent of feline population control

Readers who appreciate a novel that is extremely weird but profoundly humorous and satirical will enjoy Waiting for Gertrude. Part romance, part fantasy, and part satire, the reader who enjoys Monty Python and Douglas Adams will be perfect for this insane look at the afterlife.

You simply have to love a book containing a sentence that reads, "There never was such a ratter as Sarah Bernhardt!" What a fun read!