The cat that came 4
In brief: Sandra Bernotaitė is a young Lithuanian writer from Šiauliai who presently lives in Melbourne, Australia. “The Cat I Needed” (“Katė, kurios reikėjo”) is her first novel about Virga, the main heroine, who is like a silent grey mouse not noticed by anybody and whose empty life after the mother’s death is soon filled by Aidas, who can take care of himself and others, who is a strong and resolute man.
Virga can no longer be single, she and Aidas become ”us”. The novel is a strange love story in which two clinging people torn by internal demons and fears are described and in which the relations take Virga to a certain breaking point. The story is divided into two parts – until the Cat came and after its appearance. Virga searches for her strength painfully and learns from the Cat symbolically.
“The Cat I Needed” of S. Bernotaitė is a gloomy and grey novel at the first glance without a clear denouement. Still, it cannot be forgotten with time. It is not only about the internal change of one unhappy woman or about a painful family drama. It reminds that there are people whose fate was broken by the rotten Soviet system. It is a novel about stereotypes, searches of internal freedom and loneliness.
