We'll Prescribe You a Cat

Japan Book Review: We'll Prescribe You a Cat

ISBN: 978-0-593-81874-9
Penguin Random House LLC, 2024
297 pp; hardback

Five patients who are struggling with life's difficulties find their way one by one to the mysterious Nakagyo Kokoro Clinic for the Soul in the back streets of Kyoto. Each meets the same seemingly uncaring receptionist and not-mentally-all-there doctor, and each of the five is given a two-week "prescription" of a cat to solve their problems. Insightful readers can perhaps glean some of this just from the title of the book.

The patients consist of a troubled elementary school girl, two floundering businessmen, a hard-charging working woman and a young geisha; each with their own sets of challenges. All five are puzzled and a little apprehensive about their unique "medicine," and things go haywire for a few of them before the cats' magic starts to work.

Western readers familiar with the Japanese concept of yokai (often defined as a class of supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore) will see a bit of that in the book, especially in the last two of the five chapters. That out-of-norm storytelling is part of the charm of the book.

The cats (Bee, Margot, Koyuki, Tank and Mimita, among a few others) do the magic, but most of the stories are focused on their short-term owners. The cats don't speak or use telepathy or magic.

Being a cat lover will likely raise the chances of readers enjoying the book, although being a feline fanatic is certainly not necessary to be amused by Ishida's writing. The book was originally written in Japanese and some might complain that a few things get fuzzed up in the translation. Perhaps some of that can be explained by people who don't get the yokai concept. Offbeat and quirky are words frequent used by Westerners when discussing Japanese fiction, and both are appropriate for this book.

Originally written for adults, children can also enjoy the book as it is an easy read because even though it checks in at almost 300 pages, the book size is only 5.2 by 7.25 inches (13.2 cm by 18.4 cm).

The book is gaining international acclaim, and the back cover claims that plans are in place for the book to be published in 17 languages. To date, it has been published in English, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Polish.

I wonder how cats say "meow" in Polish.

There is a follow up to this book called, We'll Prescribe You Another Cat.