Teaching the Cat to Sit by Michelle Theall

Michelle: Teaching the Cat to Sit is a real thing and also a metaphor.

Will you please tell my readers how the title fits in with the overall story? (I know, but they probably don’t yet.) Did you get any argument from the publisher for using that title rather than something more sensational? And the cover image… did the cover designer simply find it for you, or is there a story behind it? It certainly is a perfect fit, and very appealing. Me: I love both the cover image and the title. On the flip side, I’m afraid no one will read it or care-that I just spent years of my life on something completely irrelevant. I’m afraid for the book to do well because if it does the story (and I) will embarrass my mom, feed that shame that’s still smoldering. I’m afraid of the crazies who are out there hating gays. I’m afraid of being judged, wounded all over again because I stuck it out there. Anyone who reads the book will know straight away what a chicken I am. Any qualms? I think it’s a great thing to do (as anybody who knows me will know), but I think it’s important that people understand how it feels to do it. But with the release of this book, you’re out in a whole different way. Me: I know you are probably already “out.” When you’re raising a child with another woman, you can’t very well be in. In fits and starts of bravery, I had to let her truly see me in order to start living my life. You’d think it wouldn’t take over forty years, but maybe I’m a slow learner. It was easier to be ostracized by the church, friends, the pope, and society than to risk losing my mom. What’s funny is that as long as I was pretending to be someone else or compromising, I could never know she loved the “real” me-just some semblance of me. I was so desperate to hold onto my mother’s approval that I lied and acquiesced to get it. But no one can live up to a parent’s expectations completely, which means we have to learn to navigate disappointment, loss, maybe even abandonment, in order to find our own way in the world. The importance of that first relationship that we have with our mothers tends to imprint (positively and negatively) on children like we’re goslings. Michelle: While the book covers a lot of ground, family, religion, parenting, bullying, sexual identity, gay adoption, social and cultural norms-at its heart, it’s a mother/daughter story. Michelle, please tell us about the book in your own words. The author is Michelle Theall and the book is Teaching the Cat to Sit, a memoir that fits in very well with my well-known position on LGBT issues and equality. The authors and I will have in-depth discussions about their books, which I hope will help readers identify whether they'd enjoy reading them. Because I no longer write blurbs, but still very much want to help other authors, I've launched a blog series called Better Than Blurbs.

Teaching the Cat to Sit by Michelle Theall