The Books

Black Cat

by Christopher Myers

One Potato Review

Striking for many ages. Though nominally about a cat - snipped from patterned wrapping paper, and pasted back together in different postures – this is otherwise a completely original travelogue of the city, from darkness, through daytime, then back again: luminous, paint-chipped and unapologetic. One of Faith Ringgold’s “tar beaches” actually makes an appearance near the end, as well as green glass bottles on window ledges, “blue neon churches,” chalk flowers and graffiti – everywhere colors if you know where to look. It’s not an easy place to negotiate necessarily – across traffic and fences and rooftops – but it certainly helps to follow someone who’s familiar with the territory. Using photographs and smudgy water colors and apparently anything else he can get his hands on, Myers delivers this portrait of a neighborhood that’s a little forbidding – but starkly, indelibly home.