A Tribute To Lilian Jackson Braun The Author Of The Cat Who...Books

I just learned today that Lilian Jackson Braun passed away in Landrum, South Carolina (June 20, 1913 - June 4, 2011) to God's care last year. She was 97 years old, just 16 days short of her 98th birthday.

I started reading this lady's light, clean, fun fiction back sometime in the early nineteen eighties when one day I found myself looking for something to read that wasn't academic in nature. I cruised the aisles of my local Barnes and Noble, and found several of her 'Cat Who...' books in the paperback section on the aisle labeled 'Mysteries'.

I had read all of the Agatha Christie paper backs in this section so I chose to at least 'try' Lilian Jackson Braun's cat influenced mysteries. After all is said and done I had two cats at home myself, and I have always been fascinated with cat behavior, and I asked myself, "How does a cat get involved in a murder mystery?".

I learned from reading Lilian's Cat Who... books (I have all of them in paperback) that Lilian Jackson Braun was also fascinated with cat behavior. She placed bits of her observations about her own two cats behavior in all of her pieces of fiction based on her own observations of her pet cats.

Lilian wrote her Cat Who... books starting in 1966 when she wrote "The Cat Who Could Read Backwards" right up to June 2011 when she passed away while writing "The Cat Who Smelled Smoke". I know that she had to have had several pairs of cats throughout the years because she wrote her Cat Who... books over the span of forty five (45) years. The longest I have had a cat live has been twenty years, and the longest I have known a domesticated cat to live is twenty-five years.

Lilian made her hero in her Cat Who... books a gentle-man, and a writer, who she named James Mackintosh Qwilleran. Most of the time she referred to her hero as just Qwilleran or he was often called by his fiction friends just, "Qwill"..

Qwilleran happened to inherit a small fortune (everyone's dream), and he moved to a beautiful home that was once an apple barn that he had re-modeled. While reading the stories I often thought about the apple barn that sat in the middle of a Mackintosh Apple farm just outside of Red Oaks Mill in New York State where I lived for two years as a teenager. For a short time I worked for the farmer, who was the owner of this barn, picking Mackintosh apples so this was how I knew what the interior of a real apple barn looks like. The way Lilian described her main character's remodeled, apple barn home brought back memories to me of the apple barn I visited back when I lived and worked for that farmer one summer, back in New York State.

I believe that a real apple barn surrounded by a Mackintosh Apple orchard must have been somewhere in Lilian's background. Lilian was born and grew up in Williamsett, which is a village within the City of Chicopee, Massachusetts. I was born and grew up in Lynn, Mass., and I remember that Mackintosh Apples were also grown there in Massachusetts. Perhaps as a youngster, Lilian too, had picked apples one summer?

The state where Qwilleran lived was never mentioned in the Cat Who... books but I envisioned it, as Lilian wanted the reader to do, as one of the states that boarder Canada, and New York State does boarder Canada at Niagara Falls.

I often thought that Lilian put herself in her hero's shoes to write her stories because she was a writer too, and she always kept two cats.

Now cats aren't violent creatures that would normally figure in a 'real life' mystery story, unless you view them from the viewpoint of a mangled mouse or a tattered bird. You could also envision the view point of a fly, a fly that strays into your house not knowing that the premises are patrolled by a sentry cat on duty. When this errant fly becomes a luscious snack for the vigilant feline, at the moment the fly is snatched from the air up into the cat's mouth, the fly must think that the cat is a violent creature! Yum, says the cat!

Yes, Lilian Jackson Brown was a keen observer of her own cats. What better creatures to observe, and be a part of 'light' mystery stories than two soft, loveable, death dealing cats. The two cats in Lilian's stories are the male Koko, who is super intelligent and precognitive, and Yum, Yum his soft, feminine, not too bright, yet loveable mate.

Lilian Jackson Braun published 29 'Cat Who' books as well as several other related books. She would have had 30 Cat Who...books to her credit but she passed away while doing something that she loved best, writing a Cat Who...book, which would have been her 30th one.

And Lilian Jackson Braun did use an old fashioned typewriter. I never liked having to type on my old fashioned typewriter because it was difficult to correct typos on those old machines.

While I have cats living in my home today, and have had cats all of my life since I was three years old, I haven't as of yet written a piece of fiction with my cats in the starring roles. But that should be on my agenda for the future.

I have written several 'true life' stories, both sad and happy events, that did star my loveable felines, and I have also written about the dogs that have graced my life.

I miss Lilian Jackson Braun. I miss her knowing that there will never be another Cat Who...book written by her. No one can take her place.

Carol Garnier Dutra

Copyright © 2012 Carol Garnier Dutra

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