Johnny Downs is a New York bartender, struggling actor and contentedly untethered bachelor, living alone with his jukebox and cat.

When his girlfriend abruptly leaves him, Johnny turns to Darlene, a sharp-tongued Southern graduate student who appoints herself his romantic strategist. Under her instruction, he begins the difficult transformation from charmingly unserious man into someone another person might plausibly marry.

Driven by telephone conversations, dating mishaps and finely observed social humiliations, The Catsitters is a comedy of manners from the last moment before online dating reorganised romantic life. This was the only novel by Wolcott, better known as one of America’s most acerbic cultural critics. Its publication produced an interesting reversal: a writer famous for savaging other people’s work suddenly found his own fiction under hostile review, with critics divided over whether his famously sharp voice had become unexpectedly gentle. 

First Australian edition, first printing. Flamingo/HarperCollins Australia, 2001. Paperback. Good condition, with light rubbing, marking and shelf wear to the covers.