Summary

“Pigeons, A Pony, The Tomcat, and I” is told by Kiki, the cat who inspired the French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. In Dovey’s imaginative reconstruction, Colette goes to the trenches seeking out her husband, Henri, and Kiki follows her. Kiki loses Colette along the way, and now finds herself stuck in the trenches, not knowing how to return to Paris.

Kiki opens her narration waiting for the tomcat of the trenches to return, confessing that she always believed she should have been a tomcat, not a she-cat. Musing to herself, she marvels that pigeons deliver messages to enemy lines all for “the meagre promise of being reunited with their mate” (18). Kiki then laments how the war has changed the French countryside, anticipating that this change will upset Colette.

The tomcat then returns, and...