Waltzing the cat
By: Pam Houston.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: W.W. Norton
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 288
Description: In eleven linked fictions featuring a peripatetic photographer named Lucy O'Rourke, Houston serves up once more her charismatic blend of relationships and adventure.

This is the story of one woman's struggle for balance in a world that keeps pitching and rolling under her feet. Dislocated geographically and spiritually, Lucy is prone to the wrong decisions at all the critical times; what's more, natural disasters just seem to find her: an accident on a rafting trip in Cataract Canyon, a grand cayman attack in the Amazon, a hurricane in the Gulf Stream - not to mention a few natural disasters in the form of men.

A surprise encounter with Carlos Castaneda convinces her that she isn't living the right life, and his cryptic message sends her back to her beloved Rocky Mountains. There, on a ranch, she takes comfort in animals, the jagged landscape of Colorado, and the sage advice of women friends; she even gives a man a try. Most important, for the first time she reconnects with parts of herself she didn't remember losing.
Table of contents: title: The best girlfriend you never had; title: Cataract; title: Waltzing the cat; title: Three lessons in Amazonian biology; title: The moon is a woman's first husband; title: Moving from one body of water to another; title: Like goodness under your feet; title: Then you get up and have breakfast; title: The kind of people you trust with your life; title: The whole weight of me; title: Epilogue.