2024/153: We'll Prescribe You a Cat — Syou Ishida (translated by Emmie Madison Shimoda)

‘The amount of time you spent together probably matters, but less time doesn’t mean less love. Whether it’s a day or a year, human or cat, and even if we may never see them again, there are those who are irreplaceable in our lives.’ [loc. 2613]

Somewhere in Kyoto, in an old building down a gloomy cobbled alleyway, is the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul. It can only be found by those who need it, who are weighed down by emotional pain. And the door is very heavy, but you have to keep pushing. Inside, terse nurse Chitose will direct you to Doctor Nikké, who will -- as it says on the tin -- prescribe you a cat. An actual cat, in a carrier, with a printed instruction sheet.

We'll Prescribe You a Cat is a series of linked short stories. Kagawa is unhappy at work, and is prescribed a cat who upends his life: he ends up in a much more pleasant job. Koga loathes his new supervisor, who's full of compliments for everyone: his cat helps him connect. There's a ten-year-old girl who's struggling socially, a perfectionist who can't forgive others, a geiko who's lost her own cat and can't get over the guilt. Many of these patients also encounter Dr Kokoro, who looks exactly like Dr Nikké: and Abino the geiko is shocked to find that Nurse Chitose looks exactly like her. There are disturbing rumours about the unit occupied by the Clinic for the Soul: that it's jinxed; that it was used by unscrupulous cat breeders; that it's haunted by ghosts...

Chitose and Nikké are delightful characters, and each cat that they prescribe has a distinct personality. The patients, with their problems and their resolutions, are sensitively written, and though there are echoes of loss, grief and cruelty beneath the surface, the overall mood is joyous.

I liked this much more than I'd expected. The translation reads smoothly, and the hints of magic realism never overdone.

Buddy-read with N, but I kept getting ahead as it was so compelling.

You know the old saying, “A cat a day keeps the doctor away.” Cats are more effective than any other medicine out there.’