The Cat Came Back by Hilary Mullins

The Cat Came Back

Hilary Mullins

Set in 1980, Mullins’s first novel takes the form of a journal kept by 17-year-old Stephanie (Stevie) Roughgarden during her last six months at a posh Connecticut prep school. Stevie copes with the usual concerns, such as grades and where to go to college, and with some less common ones: she is dogged by depression and, since the age of 14, has been caught in a sexually exploitative relationship with a male teacher at her school. Into Stevie’s grim world bursts Andrea Snyder, a vivacious student who brightens–but confuses–her days: Stevie finds herself increasingly attracted to Andrea, although she is sure she is ‘not supposed to feel this way about girls !!!’ Adults will soon weary of her anguished adolescent prose and perspective in this novel (‘Yaghhhhhhhhh!!!!! Those hands! Agghhh!’), and this work can be recommended to teenagers only with considerable reservation. Despite its sympathetic portrayal of Stevie coming to terms with her lesbianism, a darker message that comes through here is, if you are sexually abused, don’t bother telling adults: they won’t help you or stop the abuser.

Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 7-12. Other than Annie on My Mind (1982), there has been very little YA fiction about growing up lesbian. Mullins’ breathless novel is about prep school senior Stevie, who tells in diary form how she falls in love with her classmate Andrea. Stevie describes the initial attraction and excitement, then her doubt and denial (Is she some kind of ‘sickie’ to think about her friend that way? ‘I mean it’s QUEER, LEZZY, DYKE stuff!’); but they do get together and become tender, passionate lovers as well as friends. Unfortunately, the diary’s one note of intensity gets boring. Even if Stevie is meant to be a naive teenager, there are too many multiple exclamation points and inarticulate outbursts (‘Love, yeah, this incredible fondness’). All kinds of melodrama in the prep school scene surround the love story: Stevie is freeing herself from a three-year involvement with a malevolent male teacher who seduced her at 14. She’s freeing herself from a bullying ice hockey coach. Her father is ranting over the telephone because she didn’t get into Harvard. And the diary includes her creative writing projects, full of metaphors about beasts keeping girls captive. Still, the love affair is compelling. Many teenagers will recognize their conflicts here. One of the best moments in the book is when Stevie discovers Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle and begins to accept herself. Books can help. Hazel Rochman

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