Duke Magazine-Mar/Apr 2003-Joe Ashby Porter-Books -
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Published on: 8/22/2003
Last Visited: 8/22/2003
By Joe Ashby Porter. Turtle Point Press, 2002.
...
Along with his narrator, Porter is bent on defying any attempts to pigeonhole him or expectations that his style be set in stone.
In the collection's first story, "A Man Wanted To Buy A Cat," take the first sentence: "The man wanted to buy the cat but couldn't because his wife was allergic to it."The protagonist, like a child, wants but he can't.The owner of "a wood-working and ski repair shop," he harbors a childish obsession with obtaining a cat glimpsed in the window of a store in town.His desire is made illicit both by his wife's allergy and the cat's presumed unavailability--sitting in the windowsill, it must be the pride of the storeowner.The man imagines building a separate house exclusively for the cat in which he would shower and change clothes in each go-between from cat to wife, as if the pet were his extramarital lover.
His wife, a tolerant woman, indulges her husband's fantasy.Explaining to her children the love that binds her and her husband together, she says, "It won't necessarily be spouse number one, or any spouse for that matter, and given your age (eight) I wouldn't want to lay money on what gender or race it might be, for instance, but trust me, you'll know how lucky you're fortunate enough to be if it does eventually happen to you."Reassuring advice.
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