Cat Person

Cat Person

Summary

She thought, brightly, This is the worst life decision I have ever made! And she marvelled at herself for a while, at the mystery of this person who’d just done this bizarre, inexplicable thing.

Margot meets Robert. They exchange numbers. They text, flirt and eventually have sex – the type of sex you attempt to forget. How could one date go so wrong?

Everything that takes place in Cat Person happens to countless people every day. But Cat Person is not an everyday story. In less than a week, Kristen Roupenian’s New Yorker debut became the most read and shared short story in their website’s history. This is the bad date that went viral. This is the conversation we’re all having.

This gift edition contains photographs by celebrated photographer Elinor Carucci, who was commissioned by the New Yorker to capture the image that accompanied Kristen Roupenian’s Cat Person when it appeared in the magazine.

You Know You Want This, Kristen Roupenian’s debut collection, will be published in February 2019.

Reviews

  • A breathtakingly accurate and vivid portrait of modern dating dynamics between men and women.
    Dolly Alderton

About the author

Kristen Roupenian

Kristen Roupenian graduated from Barnard and holds a PhD in African Literature from Harvard. She is a Zell Fellow in the University of Michigan MFA program, and has received numerous awards for her work. She has studied with Laura Kasischke, Jeff Van der Meer and Claire Vaye Watkins. Her short story 'Cat Person' became a viral sensation when it was published by the New Yorker at the end of 2017, dubbed ‘the most talked-about short story ever’. You Know You Want This is her first book.
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