Pinkwater's ADVENTURES OF A CAT-WHISKERED GIRL, sequel to Neddiad and Yggyssey

Daniel Pinkwater's Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl is the sequel to his Neddiad (a gonzo take on the Iliad starring Neddie, a boy who moves to 1950s Los Angeles, eats in the Brown Derby, attends military school, befriends shamans, eats fried foods, and saves the world from the Elder Gods) and Ygyssey (The Odyssey, starring a tomboyish legacy of a rootin-tootin' silent film cowboy who travels to a parallel dimension, enervates a witch, discovers the secret revels of Los Angeles's ghosts, is put-off by hippie food and fells a corrupt dictatorship).

The eponymous Cat-Whiskered Girl is Big Audrey, whom Yggy met in the parallel dimension/underworld where the climax of The Ygyssey takes place. Big Audrey returns to LA with Yggy and the gang, works in a donut store, but finds herself lured away on a vision quest with Marlon Brando, who drives her to Poughkeepsie in a convertible stuffed with health food and chocolate cakes. Once in Poughkeepsie, Audrey ends up working in a UFO-nut bookstore, and befriends many local characters, including the crazy people from the sanatorium who visit on day-passes.

It's these crazy people who put Audrey on the trail of the inexplicable Wednesday-night UFOs that land outside the big stone barn where the best apple fritters in the galaxy are prepared by the proprietress, Clarinda Quakenboss. This (naturally) leads them to Chicken Nancy, the local wise-woman, who is so old she remembers when the disappearing house behind the stone barn was occupied by local Dutch aristos, who made their fortune selling the Van Vreemdeling Kwispedoor, a bestselling spittoon (she also remembers when Abe Lincoln invented the idea of putting cream cheese and lox on bagels).

Audrey and her crazy pal Molly (who is part Dutch leprechaun) are set on a quest by Chicken Nancy, through which they discover their hidden talents (Molly, for example can summon forth the fierce bloodthirsty demons within every Christmas tree). They are assisted by a Pinkwaterian cast of characters, such as Harold, a tiny, well-spoken giant with a degree in Classical Accountancy from Vassar. Before long, they're dimension-hopping again, beset by corrupt coppers, mysterious cherubs, and a truly awful secret society.

Daniel Pinkwater is the best, weirdest, most inspiring writer in the field today. Watching him do bizarro is like watching Fred Astaire dance: jaw-dropping magic that appears effortless and natural. Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl is full of places I want to go, secret societies I want to join, people I want to meet, and fried foods I want to gorge upon. This book will make you a very happy mutant indeed.

Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl

(Previous volumes: The Neddiad, The Yggyssey)

• [Anonymous]

  The only thing better than reading a Daniel Pinkwater book is listening to a Daniel Pinkwater book narrated by Daniel Pinkwater. I can’t wait to pick this one up.

• [Anonymous]

  I followed the Yggyssey in its online serialization, and somehow never stumbled across the Neddiad. Quel domage! Well, never too late… Thanks so much for bringing the full trilogy to my attention!

• [Toby]

  I’m confused – if this is a sequel to his takes on the Illiad and the Odyssey, what does that make this one, the Aeneid? There doesn’t seem to be an obvious reference…

• [Anonymous]

  Interesting review

  Dad

• [hughelectronic]

  Cover art by the awesome Calef Brown: http://drawger.com/calef/

  • [Anonymous]

    came here to post exactly that. i’m a real admirer of his stuff! he has an etsy page as well (http://www.etsy.com/shop/CalefBrown)…

• [hungrylens]

  The Big Orange Splot was my favorite book when I was a kid… actually I think it’s one of the best books of all time.

  http://www.amazon.com/Big-Orange-Splot-Manus-Pinkwater/dp/0590445103/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274973081&sr=8-1

• [ncm]

  Maybe it should have been called The Vreemdelungenlied.

• [bts44]

  Oh! Miracle of Adventure.

• [Stefan Jones]

  I read Ygyssey not long ago. A lot of fun.

  @#2: Yes, Pinkwater is a GREAT narrator, both of fiction and bizarro anecdotes. Which reminds me that I need to digitize my copy of his reading of BORGEL.

  I have a zip file somewhere full of wave files of Captain Pinkwater doing various computer announcements, tailored for the old AOL software audible cues, in the style of an old yiddish guy.

• [WaylonWillie]

  hooray, new DP! Thanks for posting. Will this one be serialized on the web?

• [Paul Coleman]

  You had me at Poughkeepsie.