... a no-holds-barred collection of 13 dirty, doughty and often wickedly funny stories that cover everything from common misconceptions about aging (no, grandmothers aren’t only there to serve their grandchildren, and, yes, their thinking processes can be just as deep and nuanced as they were at a youthful 30) to erotic desire (or the long-overdue liberation from sexual obligation) to retaining agency as 'an oldie.' The best part? They’re all narrated by mouthy women who are through with being patronized ... Campbell is at her strongest when she combines astute observations about getting older with intimate portraits of humans in need ... isn’t flawless. The choppy sentences and wonky punctuation in sections could use addressing. The shocking endings to some stories don’t always match the well-paced development in the rest of the narrative ... Still, Jane Campbell’s commanding voice — and wise insights about female empowerment, about embracing one’s twilight years and about feeling seen no matter how old you are — is one damn well worth listening to.
It’s not every day you come across an octogenarian’s literary debut, and it’s not every day — or every year — that you encounter a debut as fresh, assured and fun as Jane Campbell’s Cat Brushing from a writer of any age. Though her stories are frequently explicit enough to bring color to your cheeks, Campbell maintains a cool, commanding tone that enhances the effect of her limpid prose ... The stories are varied in approach without being showy about it, and consistently draw novel insight from a few major themes: aging, sexuality, memory, loneliness. Her work merits comparison with that of Edna O’Brien or Muriel Spark, while an uncanny streak running through several of the pieces might bring Daphne du Maurier to mind ... cuts directly against the spirit of this excellent, pathbreaking collection to reduce an elder to a vending machine for wisdom, but with apologies to Campbell, these strike me as words to live by.
Octogenarian Jane Campbell may be 'new' to the publishing industry, but her first book is refreshingly accomplished. The 13 exquisitely drawn short stories in the collection are woven with wit and bold enlightenment. Each meticulously crafted gem focuses on the lives of aging women who grapple with their shrinking places in the world while coming to terms with feelings and failings, choices and losses ... Aspects of regret, mourning, fantasies and lost love infuse these eloquently rendered, skillfully plotted stories that pack a wallop ... in Campbell's wholly original, late-in-life stories, the limitations compelled by age become surprising sources of wisdom and empowered liberation.
... plumbs the lives, longings, and ongoing intellectual turmoil of older women in language that’s light but tart and penetrating; Campbell is a master of the apt phrase ... A charming and incisive study of women in late life that will be revelatory to all readers.
Campbell’s writing is intimate and enveloping, and while main characters may share commonalities, their stories are quite eclectic. The rare perspective of Campbell’s collection makes this a breath of fresh air.
Forging an entire short fiction collection around a single theme—and delivering one truly original tale after another—is trickier than it sounds. It's too easy to fall into the trap of repetition and rhythm, making each tale read like the last one, just with the serial numbers filed off. Jane Campbell's first book, which she's publishing in her 80th year, maintains a thorough sense of originality while delivering a stunning range of works on the inner lives of older women. The stories in Cat Brushing cross genres and boundaries, daring the reader to meditate on previously unexplored (or at the very least, rarely explored) perspectives on aging, sexuality, violence and beyond ... The baker's dozen of tales that make up Cat Brushing are all delivered through lean, incisive, witty prose that calls to mind the calculated directness of Ernest Hemingway and the furious expressiveness of Joyce Carol Oates. Campbell's sentences are solid, imposing, often free of adornment in terms of punctuation, and each one seems carefully crafted to get to the core of a certain emotional truth. Whether she's writing a first-person or third-person narrative, Campbell's wisdom, passion and honesty come through, imbuing the collection with an elegant, often lyrical power ... Within these women's stories of loss, desire, pain and memory, we discover the feeling of holding onto something primal even as the world seems determined to forget that side of us. To capture such complexity in one story is powerful, but for Campbell to do so 13 times makes Cat Brushing one of the most compelling fiction collections you'll find this year.
Campbell’s reserved, formal tone, which reflects women shaped by conservative gender norms, and her bleak endings combine to make devastating stories. Sometimes, though, these very same qualities keep the stories from achieving their emotional punch. The final piece, 'On Being Alone,' which is actually about finding connection, is like a sunny day after a month of rain ... An affecting collection about the many indignities of being old.
... an accomplished collection centering the emotional and psychological lives of the elderly, delivering astute observations and sharp critiques, and restoring agency to characters who are routinely robbed of it ... While the plots are sometimes too heavily reliant on coincidence....Campbell succeeds in portraying the characters’ complex inner lives. Ripe with sensuality, this is full of vivid portraits.
