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Rating: 
Summary: Whining is not an attractive quality,
Review: even in a writer of Piercy's stature. By the time I was a quarter of the way through the book, I was bored. By the time I was finished, I was ready to write Piercy off . . . but then I re-read her poetry, and was hooked again. So what if I didn't enjoy the story of her life? She probably wouldn't enjoy mine, either. But seriously, this is one autobiography that I'd rather pass in favor of the fiction and poetry.
Rating: 
Summary: this book needs some editing
Review: I was attracted to this book because I'm a woman and a cat-lover. I do not know anything about the author but based on review quotes was expecting excellent, entertaining writing. The content is engaging enough, but I noticed that she seems to retell details more often than I suspect she intended. Forgetfulness perhaps? In addition, many paragraphs seem poorly constructed, with her rambling on as though she's just thinking aloud. I'm just a bit disappointed and would not be likely to seek out her other works based on this.
Rating:
Summary: this book needs some editing
Review: I was attracted to this book because I'm a woman and a cat-lover. I do not know anything about the author but based on review quotes was expecting excellent, entertaining writing. The content is engaging enough, but I noticed that she seems to retell details more often than I suspect she intended. Forgetfulness perhaps? In addition, many paragraphs seem poorly constructed, with her rambling on as though she's just thinking aloud. I'm just a bit disappointed and would not be likely to seek out her other works based on this.
Rating: 
Summary: A warm series of insights
Review: In Sleeping With Cats, author Marge Piercy's reflections on her life and literature provide a warm series of insights which will appeal to any with a prior affection for her writings. From a strained childhood in Detroit to a series of friendships and failed relationships, chapters consider the effects of her life on her career and goals.
Rating:
Summary: Old Left Cat
Review: Lyrically written, Marge Piercy dances us through her childhood, coming of age, and adulthood. A portrait of the blooming of the new left in the sixties; open marriage, the flaws, fallacies, and avenues of personal growth; and cats, little cats and the specialness of old cats. I loved this book. I read it on my long commute home, and now that I have finished it, I feel like I am missing a friend. When I can think about it without crying, I will write a letter to Marge Piercy and tell her how much I loved this book.An update: I did write to Ms Piercy, and much to my surprise, she wrote me back! I was pleased to learn she has added an Abyssinian cat to her current menagerie, a breed that have been my constanct companions since college.
Rating:
Summary: Painful truthfulness
Review: Marge Piercy is well-known for her poetry and for her semi-science fiction novel "Woman on the Edge of Time." She has won literary awards and is certainly an American woman writer of great note. Her honesty and brutal clarity in rendering her memoirs is that more startling, as much of it is unpleasant and she hardly spares herself. Piercy grew up in a lower class Detroit neighborhood, and was brutally beaten by her father while her needs as an adolescent girl were pretty much ignored by her mother. She found love in girl gangs, had illicit sex with both girls and boys, and yet was accepted to University of Michigan, the best public university in the state. Her career there was as an outsider--she was not the typical well-off, middle class sorority or dorm co-ed with cashmere sweaters and pearls. Instead, Piercy started the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and wrote, winning the prestigious Hopwood writing award at U of M. Her writing career spanned the times she belonged to communes, then became disenchanted with the increasingly dogmatic Marxist left movement in the 60's. She bounced from Europe to New York to Boston, to Cape Cod, now her home. In all her writing, Piercy has an uncanny ability to describe her minute observations of place and feeling, a gift attributes to her emotional mother. She expresses the anger at her distant and brutal father, whom she obliquely blames for her mother's death (she had a stroke and he did not call the ambulance service until he had meticulously picked up every fragment of a fluorescent bulb she had broken during her fall.) Her "open marriage" is described with all the ambiguity of such a relationship. No one writes more grittily, more deeply observant than Piercy--the parts of "Woman on the Edge of Time" where the main character is struggling to leave an insane asylum, are so realistic and troubling, it helps to know Piercy from her memoirs to better understand her craft. If you like Piercy's writing, this memoir is a fine way to get to know her and to gain a better understanding of how she creates her fiction and poetry.
Rating: 
Summary: A refreshing change from many autobiographies.
Review: Ms. Piercy shares with us her life - unsanitized, unpasteurized, in all its naked glory. She does not attempt to present herself as Saint Marge, but unapologetically offers her humanity. From her childhood in Detroit, through stints in Boston and California, then finally back to lovely Wellfleet, we see a brave, intelligent, strong woman struggling to live her life to the best of her ability. This book is an inspiration - I recommend it heartily to all women seeking to engage fully with life.
Ms. Piercy addresses the cats who have populated her life as completely as she does any of the humans. Animal lovers will understand and appreciate the love she exudes in print for her four-legged family members.
On the negative side, she sometimes jumps around from topic to topic, a bit disjointedly...but I pretended I was having a conversation over coffee with her, and the writing style fell into place.
Rating:
Summary: Sleeping with Cats and other choices
Review: My girlfriend loaned me this book. I read it for a few hours one evening, and nearly finished it the next. I worked in the NYC movement that Ms Piercy describes and knew people she mentions.
This is a memoir that I could call my own; it describes her, my, and our generation's journey from our working class backgrounds to our own knowledge-worker class, who put aside the acquisition of monetary success in favor of having a life in a small town, and sleeping with cats.
I'm a cat person, tho currently without one, and thoroughly enjoyed her cat stories. My story with my aging parents is similar to hers.
There is much laughter, here, in watching cats.
There are tears to be shed, too, watching cats, friends, lovers, parents, come into our lives and make their exits. I'll buy my own copy, to read again and write down her quotes:
"Freedom is choice." I'll buy this book for each of my children; it describes well the journey of me and many of my 60s friends.
Rating:
Summary: Not just with cats
Review: This book is an interesting chronicle of the rise of a noted poet/novelist from the streets of Detroit. It is put forward as a frank portrayal of her life and rings true in part. There are many false notes, however, such as her witnessing from the car the bull elks going at it full thrust with their racks in rut (not likely). Her tenacity and will to succeed come through clearly throughout the book. Each chapter is capped by a poem, a nice break from the narrative flow. The strongest part of the book is on cats; she likes and appreciates them and shows understanding. Her parents and the people in her life, not the case. Marge is an opportunist and a survivor, that's it right there. Her involvement in SDS was her ticket to getting published as a novelist (Going Down Fast), and she has
exploited that well. At least the movement served some purpose. Marge has achieved celebrity status and attempts to enhance that reputation in her memoir. She has slept, she claims, not just with cats but anything with pants and a skirt (very passionate she says). She seems to revel in her relationship with a younger man (14 years she tells us), as if that's an achievement. It's not the details so much, it's the tone, the display. Too much marge.
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