["Wild Cat" is] is a deliberate backlash to the cloying sweetness of most cat books. [It is a] harsh, brutal, detailed moralistic naturalistic [story of a miserable urban cat's life cycle]….

The saga of "Wild Cat" begins in the womb and birth canal of a mother cat who is wedged in an alley somewhere, and moves briskly from one trauma (trucks, siblings being eaten, crunch, crunch, by dogs) to another (sex, rats, loss of mate, plunge into river, birth)…. The text has a sensual enthusiasm sometimes reminiscent of old-style pornography: "Her body felt the pain and shock of her first touch of a male. But then she relaxed to accept him until his body flooded her with the hot rush of his seed."

[This is] not the usual itsy-poo kitty-cat [book] for 8-year-olds who daydream of their pets in a pastel fantasy world and watch cat food commercials...