Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. Lurid dreams of hybrids and mutants fill out a book also concerned with ``cuteness ratings.'' The hipster's (and hepcat's) answer to Cleveland Amory. Of course, Burroughs adds some incoherent stuff about dogs (with their ``vilest coprographic perversions'') and about cats as natural enemies of the State. And then there are Burroughs's cats- Ruski, Fletch, Horatio, Wimpy, et al.-none of whom does anything beyond acting like a cat.
The usual gang of suspects makes the briefest of cameos, from Allen Ginsberg to Jane Bowles. The septuagenarian beatnik would seem to be the least likely author of a cat book, but Burroughs has clearly mellowed some and here celebrates his favorite ``psychic companions.'' Full of sentimental anecdotes and bizarre pseudo-scholarly lore, his slim essay is, in his view, ``an allegory, in which the writer's past life is presented to him in a cat charade.'' Fans will indeed appreciate the references to beat legend, and the cats who witnessed those days in Tangier, Morocco, and Mexico City.
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