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Here Kitty Kitty: A Novel (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "ONE SHOULD consume Baileys in a crystal tumbler while watching Spice Hot..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Black Betty, Town Car (more...)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

They say the best nonfiction reads like fiction. But is the reverse also true? It would seem so after reading this gorgeously written debut novel, whose narrator is so keenly evoked that her reminiscences read like a memoir. Lee is one of New York's party girls extraordinaire. She's also a complete train wreck. She manages a trendy Tribeca restaurant yet can't pay the rent on a railroad flat in Brooklyn's hipster ghetto. Not many salaries could support her ravenous appetite for drugs or her taste for white knee-length furs from Bergdorf's. Still in mourning over her mother's death two years ago, Lee likens herself to a pint of raspberries: "On top the ruby berries looked juicy. Unwrapped and spilled into the colander, they revealed undersides black with rot." In deftly rendered scenes and flashbacks, Libaire introduces us to the eccentrics who occupy Lee's life: Yves, her French sugar daddy; Kelly, an enigmatic wanderer; Belinda, her reformed best friend. She's able to capture a character's essence in a single, lovely phrase, particularly Lee's mother: "Guests would arrive at eight and find her in a damp bikini, only beginning to scour cookbooks for ideas. But the night would be unforgettable." Laced with musings about art and marked by unexpected metaphors ("Drugs turned the cardboard box of an ordinary day into a honeycomb, dripping and blond"), the book summons consistently powerful images. But like a sloppy night of boozing recalled the morning after, some readers will wonder what the point was. More of an extended character study than a plot-focused narrative, it floats along on a cloud of Lee's narcissism, celebrating "poverty and dependence" as glamorous, despite efforts to convince the reader otherwise.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist

Soho restaurant manager and bedraggled party girl Lee is beginning to wonder exactly when her joie de vivre morphed into mania. Every night she staggers home in her Helmut Lang heels after drinking and drugging her way through the evening. She has stopped making art; no longer hangs out with her former partner in crime, Belinda; and has been abandoned by her lover, who's off to culinary school in Paris. She's taken up with a much older, wealthy man, although their relationship seems to consist of dining on Kumamoto oysters at every high-end restaurant in town. Then she meets Kelly, a well-traveled ex-surfer who is slowly and painfully trying to put his life back together after losing a good friend to suicide. With his help, Lee starts to think about refashioning her life. First-novelist Libaire jams her paragraphs with fractured images of the cityscape, brand-name clothing, trendy neighborhoods, and after-hours clubs. Some readers will be put off by her distinctive style, but quite a few others will be seduced by her cinematic writing and her vulnerable hipsters. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (May 10, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0316736880
  • ISBN-13: 978-0316736886
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,281,799 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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More About the Author

Jardine Libaire
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› Visit Amazon's Jardine Libaire Page
Front Cover | Front Flap | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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First Sentence:
ONE SHOULD consume Baileys in a crystal tumbler while watching Spice Hot. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Black Betty, Town Car, Kelly Bradley
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Customer Reviews

21 Reviews
5 star:
 (13)
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 (5)
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (21 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful & Gritty, June 21, 2004
By JB (Seatown) - See all my reviews
If you are looking for some typical "fluffy" romance dribble, look elsewhere. This novel takes the reader through both the grimey muck and the sunny joys of life and love in the city. At some points you want to smack the main character (Lee), other times you feel genuine sympathy, and at other moments you want to go party with her; quite a rollercoaster of a read.
While it is no Tao-te Ching, the author provides plenty of depth in character development and vivid imagery; a quick, poetic read. Well worth the $, I'd say.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical Brooklyn, July 9, 2004
By Claudia Burke (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
Lee sparkles (and fizzles) and reminds you that you will never be half as interesting or dynamic as she is-like those beautiful girls you knew in high school, who inhabit your classes but not your world. When Lee falls and learns how to live on her own, she does it with such New York panache, you are almost jealous of her small, grimy apartment, her empty wallet, and her detoxification. Author Jardine Libaire made the wise choice to keep Lee's story small. Lee is self-centered even during her recovery, and a larger story would have betrayed the narcissism that makes you love and hate her. And, after all, the choice to live your life sharply is only ever the day to day business of recognizing your small world. I didn't need Lee to be influenced by the love of a mysterious man, nevertheless, I understood the author's choice. Jardine Libaire's prose is so lyrical, it's practically poetry. The book is a love letter to New York, its landscape, its debauchery, and its insufferable and beautiful people.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Striking, Beautiful, July 9, 2004
By A Customer
This is a truly absorbing debut, in equal parts potent and bewitching. Libaire reads the filigree of New York City like someone who has intimately traced its edges and mapped each inviting curl.

The best parts of the book, though, are maybe the more quiet episodes: the pure and clinging elegance of Libaire's prose comes out when she's writing about wet fields, cats, and wildflowers. The tremolo of the city relaxes into small private moments; summer is languid and heady, glimmering with wine and fireflies.

I can't say enough about this author's talent. Libaire writes with a plangent, poignant thunder that would stun but for the subtle dexterity of her voice. This is a book to be read and then reread, held close.

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