Alison Nastasi

Nastasi curates an interesting collection of portraits of artists posing with their pet cats or those that happened to wander into the picture while the photographer was taking the picture. With the exception of Babou who is featured on the front cover with his human Salvador Dali, all the felines in the book belong to the species Felis catus. Dali was known to pass off Babou as a large housecat decorated to look like a leopard when they ventured out in public. In fact, Babou was a Colombian ocelot Leopardus pardalis, same family, much the same behavior, but a different, slightly larger species, than the descendants of African or European wildcats that have domesticated Homo sapiens.

Some of my favorite selections from the collection are a color photo of William S. Burroughs holding a calico in his lap, behind him a wall of colorful graffiti and what appears to be a shotgun, a black and white of Andy Warhol and a Siamese, a color of Edward Gorey and his cat staring at the photographer. In both of these last two, the cats bear a striking resemblance to their humans, as does the portrait of Georgia O’Keeffe with a cat perched on her shoulder. My absolute favorite is a sepia of Wanda Gág; the author of Millions of Cats is shown in profile as she looks admiringly at the cat, while the cat stares down the photographer.… (meer)

Best for:
People looking for a niche book that will each them a little bit a bout a bunch of queer folks, and also has pictures of cats.

In a nutshell:
The title pretty much sums it up.

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
My partner read it, and it looked pretty adorable. Also, cats!

What it left me feeling:
Vaguely disappointed

Review:
This is a tiny little coffee table-style book. It’s only about 100 pages and maybe 45 people are featured. There’s a photo of the person with a cat, and then a brief biography about the person. It’s pretty straightforward, however …

It’s not actually about people and THEIR cats. I’d say a good half of these folks just happened to be photographed with a cat once, or maybe adopted a cat at some point. Only a few of the feature people are like Freddy Mercury, who were definitely very much into their cats. That’s fine - the point is really to learn about the individuals, not their cats, but the book title seems to be a bit misleading.

That aside, I did enjoy learning about lots of queer folks who I was not familiar with, ranging across the past hundred years or so. Some people (like Mercury) are ones most people know about, but there were also older authors and overall queer pioneers that I’d never heard of. So that was cool.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Keep - because again, cats!… (meer)

Queer Icons and their Cats by Alison Nastasi & PJ Nastasi

Snapshots and brief biographical sketches of new and well known queer icons…with their furry feline friends. This book has forty or more personalities with even more cats photographed with them. I met authors, musicians, artists, actors, poets, philosophers, film critics, models, directors…and more and all love and adore their pets just as their cats love their humans. Great for a coffee table, as a gift for a cat loving queer friend, or for anyone interested in a glimpse into the lives of any or all of the people in this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Chronicle Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4-5 Stars… (meer)