In Search of Cleo: How I Found My Kitty and Lost My Mind

Gina Gershon

Oct 2012 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

A charming and funny memoir about experiences Gina Gershon has had with cats throughout her life that are analogous to her relationships with men and her ongoing search for true love.

Film and television icon Gina Gershon may be best known for her movie roles in Bound and Showgirls  and television appearances on Curb Your Enthusiasm  and How to Make It in America, but deep down she is a self-described cat lady. In Search of Cleo  follows Gina’s desperation and despair when her assistant loses her beloved cat, Cleo. Gina spends two months roaming the back streets of Los Angeles at all hours of the night, searching for Cleo and meeting several quirky and outrageous characters who help or hinder her in different ways, including Ellen DeGeneres, who searches with Gina and recommends her pet psychic, Sonia; Arthur, the newspaper delivery man who gives her advice; and the mysterious fortune-teller, who appears from the shadows to give her a statue of Saint Gertrude, the protector of cats everywhere.

Gina soon finds herself enmeshed in L.A.’s strangest subcultures, doing everything she can to bring Cleo home, including chanting with a bunch of crystal-wielding hippies and being slapped with a chicken by a Santeria priest. Along the way, she reflects on the various cats that have been a part of her life and shares her travails as a single girl in search of both her cat and some sanity. In Search of Cleo  will delight pet lovers and singletons alike as it introduces Cleo to the celebrated pantheon of literary cats that includes Dewey, Homer, and Oscar.

Ratings and reviews

This is an amazing story about the spiritual bond between the author and their cat. You are captured immediately from the moment you read the first page until the end. This is a poignant story for any animal lover and it makes you ponder how far would you go to find your own family pet.

About the author

Besides her many movie and television roles, Gina Gershon is a founding member of the New York City theater group Naked Angels and coauthor of the children’s book Camp Creepy Time. She lives in New York.