It's a story many of us know well. While going about our daily lives, we are "found" by a stray animal - or several at once - and before we know it, we're naming them, taking pictures of them, having them checked out by the vet, dabbing their little butts with warm washcloths to make them pee, etc. And at some point along the way, we acknowledge to ourselves, if not always out loud, that they are ours and we are theirs.
Nina Malkin of Sunset Park has chronicled her version of this life-altering event in "An Unlikely Cat Lady: Feral Adventures in the Backyard Jungle" (The Lyons Press, 2007). And Malkin, a journalist and author, takes it a step further, not only by engaging in the TNR effort, but by shattering the stereotype of the "crazy cat lady."
As she says in this interview with the Brooklyn Paper:
We all know what the image of us is. But most of us don’t conform to it. We have lives, relationships, husbands, children, jobs, friends. But one way or another, we started caring for the animals that no one else will care for.
Malkin also points out that men like cats, too, and encourages caretakers to keep their cats indoors, where it's safe - and where, after all, they really wanted to be in the first place.
Her book is available here, of course, but you might want to buy it elsewhere (because of this).
