"[This collection] displays Vian's range from gallows humor to verbal
fireworks, and happily serves to give visibility to this important
writer."- Publishers Weekly. "Ultimately, Blues for a Black Cat is a
collection of moral fables, albeit fables told in a cynical, mocking
voice and set in a skewed version of the real world. Under the surface
absurdity and verbal play, they offer serious indictments of human
weakness and pretensions. Further, they reveal the spiritual emptiness
just beneath our civilized façade. Vian's blues are not only for a black
cat, but for a society without meaning."- Manoa. "[Blues for a Black
Cat] brings back the nimble Vian in a collection of his short fiction,
initially published as Les Fourmis in 1949. The work has the
unmistakable flavor of the time and place, Claude Abadie's jazz band,
the coded and absurdist messages of rebellion, the wistful fables,
verbal riffs and goofy anarchic encounters; the mise-en-scene includes
an expiring jazzman who sells his sweat, a cat with a British accent and
a piano that mixes a cocktail when "Mood Indigo" is played."-Boston
Globe. Boris Vian (1920-59), a trained engineer and jazz trumpet player,
was a major literary figure in World War II France. Julia Older is the
author or editor of many works. Her stories, translations, and poems
have appeared in New Directions, the New Yorker, and many other
journals.
