Short stories
Why Cats Hate Birds
- Publisher
- DC Books
- Published
- April 2014
- Pages
- 150
- Price
- $18.95
- ISBN
- 9781927599266
- Language
- English
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The title of Why Cats Hate Birds very much reflects the collection’s themes. Are we trapped by our nature? And what is our understanding of nature? What is black and white, straight and gay, reality and fantasy, Canadian and Barbadian? The stories in Why Cats Hate Birds are Armstrong’s way of saying that such distinctions are not natural but of our own construction. The work spans the length of Armstrong’s writing career. The earliest, “Flying in God’s Face,” which inspired his novel Of Water and Rock, is set in the 1960s, though the majority take place in a today familiar to us all. Three stories in particular are linked by the character Charles Blackette: “Kingdom of Fools,” “Invention” and “Blood is Thick.” They explore Blackette’s life as a black man who battles his notion of self. But, at heart, all the stories in Why Cats Hate Birds, perceptive, resonant, emotionally honest, are an attempt to break those silos that separate us, and make us realize that other people’s stories are our stories.
Description from the publisher DC Books, seen in October 2026 · Source ↗
Also by Thomas Armstrong
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Of Water and Rock Thomas Armstrong
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The Nerves Centre Angela Szczepaniak
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Mont Babel Keith Henderson
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Ghost Face Greg Santos
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Landscape with the Fall of Icarus Zsolt Alapi
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Kate Wake Mariianne Mays Wiebe
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Nearly Terminal Eleni Zisimatos
