Like Patrick Susskind's Perfume, Felidae is a remarkable literary thriller from Europe with dark, historical resonance. With his American debut, Akif Pirinçci has accomplished a leap of the imagination so thrilling and original that the book has already become an international sensation, rising to the top of bestseller lists in Germany, France, and Italy.
Although it unfolds daily around us - in our backyards, kitchens, basements, and alleys - the world of Felidae is unknown to mere humans. Our witty, ironic guide is Francis, an ordinary housecat with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Refusing to accept the banality of death, Francis sets out to connect a chain of events, each link more mysterious and perplexing than the last: a rash of grisly psychopathic murders, a bizarre sect that worships an unknown martyr, an ancient crypt whose guardian is half insane, and the journal of a human scientist whose obsessive experiments violated all moral codes, human or feline ...
The answers to Francis's questions are not simple. They concern the nature of good and evil, subjugation and liberation, and the ambiguities of justice. They are about cruelty, vengeance, the necessary cycle of creation and destruction, and even genocide.
Akif Pirinçci has brilliantly imagined a world where cats speak and act almost as humans do. Highly praised upon publication in Europe, Felidae is a subtle psychological thriller that delves into the reader's subconscious to illuminate the best and worst about ourselves.