Homer's Odyssey -- An Unlikely Tale About a Blind Feline

That old cliché, love is blind, couldn't be closer to the truth when it comes to a cat named Homer.

Twelve years ago, Homer was a sick and abandoned kitten rescued by a Miami couple. A vet determined the infection plaguing the two-week-old kitten's eyes was so severe, his best chance of survival depended on removing his eyes entirely. The couple wanted to put him to sleep rather than subject him to such a trying surgery, but the vet convinced them to let her do the procedure and find the cat a new owner.

Enter Gwen Cooper, who now recounts 12 years worth of adventures with Homer in the sure-to-be-bestseller Homer's Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat.

Before embarking on her latest odyssey -- a book tour -- Cooper talked with Paw Nation about Homer's amazing life story.



Why take in a blind cat when you already had two cats and, at the time, no place of your own to live?
Believe me, there was a lot of flux in my life at that point, and of course I was thinking, "This is really not a good time to have a third cat." In fact, I was the very last person on my veterinarian's list of people to call who might take him in. She had been refused left, right and sideways by people who had previously told her that they were expressly interested in adopting a handicapped cat. When she contacted me and told me Homer's story, I was listening in tears. I said, "I'll meet him but I'm not promising you anything." Of course, I went down there and fell in love.

When did you first get the inspiration to write a book about Homer?
It really never occurred to me to write a memoir about Homer until about a year and a half ago when Marley & Me was still hugely popular and that book about Dewey the library cat was coming out. I started to think there could be a potentially cool story in Homer, but I wasn't really sure what that story was going to be -- how to make a narrative out of it. So for about a year, I floated the idea around in my head but didn't really dedicate myself to the idea of writing this book.

Then I was planning my wedding -- I got married last September -- and I had an epiphany. I had adopted Homer about two months after this break-up I'd had 12 years earlier, and now I was getting married. It begins with a break-up and ends with a wedding. In between is this relationship between me and this cat and the extraordinary ways he changed my life. Homer helped me become who I became. The person who broke up with this guy 12 years ago in Miami was not this woman in New York who was about to be married. I instantly knew that that was the story, and then it all just came together.

So the fact that you named him Homer wound up being a pretty nifty coincidence when it came to naming the book!
I am a huge fan of Greek mythology! I called it Homer's Odyssey because we moved so many times and because those 12 years were filled with so many journeys and villains and perils and romances. They say the most important thing for a blind cat is stability of environment. That's how they learn to get around. But poor Homer has been dragged into so many living situations. My friend's place, my parents' house, my own apartment -- he actually stayed with my ex-boyfriend briefly -- my first place in New York, and then the apartment I moved into with my husband. The word "journey" gets used a lot in stories and is meant in a very metaphorical sense. That's there in this book, but there's also a real sense of all the physical journeys. The story is an odyssey, true to form.

Why did you choose the name Homer all those years ago?
I wanted to name him Oedipus at first, for obvious reasons. I thought I'd call him Eddie for short and it would be sort of cute. But a friend told me it was kind of mean -- although her idea was to name him Socket, which I think is kind of mean.

There was a lot of back and forth on what his name should be. People were like, "You should name him Ray or Stevie," because he's blind and black. I just felt like, "No, no, that's not his name." I finally settled on Homer because of Homer the blind poet who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey. But also, I named him Homer because I sensed in this kitten that there was going to be something epic about him. He had already been so close to death so many times in the four weeks he'd been alive. It seemed the beginning of a great story, which always begins with the longest of odds.

Although Homer endures against such great odds, he doesn't seem easily traumatized. In fact, he comes off as anything but a 'fraidy cat.
When I moved from Miami to New York and flew the cats on a plane, that was probably the most traumatic thing ever for Homer. When you fly with pets, there can only be four cats in the entire plane, and only two per cabin, and a ticketed passenger can only travel with one animal at a time. So I had to buy plane tickets for two of my friends. They got free coach seats to New York, and Homer and I sat in first class. Homer just absolutely refused to take a tranquilizer. He was not happy. That was a bad day for poor, little Homer.

Judging by the Homer anecdotes in your book, he is the hyper-embodiment of the curious cat. In what ways does he demonstrate curiosity above and beyond your two other cats?
The first and most obvious way is the extent to which he's attracted by loud and random noises. When I'm vacuuming, the other two cats run like it's the apocalypse. I don't know if Homer knows what that sound is, but he knows it's something. For years, he was so interested in it. Now he actually sleeps through it and I vacuum around him. Occasionally when I'm cooking and the smoke detector goes off, the other two just sort of scatter, but again, Homer's very interested in what that is. Homer's just always really interested in whatever it is that I'm doing. I was packing a suitcase today, and Homer had to be in the suitcase, inspecting every article of clothing that went in.

How do Scarlett and Vashti feel about their now famous brother?
Vashti just wants to sit around and be petted and look pretty. She'll play with Homer but doesn't want to play dirty. Homer and Scarlett have a Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote relationship. Scarlett is sort of a curmudgeon. She thinks Homer's an idiot. Of course, I'm pretty sure she doesn't understand that he's blind. She will sit there watching him creep up on her, from the front, very stealthily, and she's looking at him like, "What are you, an idiot?" Just as he's about to pounce, she bats at him with her paw, and his whole little face just falls. Like he really thought that this time he was going to startle her.

Tags: animal books, AnimalBooks, blind cat, BlindCat, gwen cooper, GwenCooper, homers odyssey, HomersOdyssey