MARY SAVAGE

A Likeness

to Voices

First DELL printing, Feb., 1965

CONDITION:  FAIR TO GOOD.  Tear at bottom left front cover, small tan stains on bottom of first 18 pages, otherwise pages okay.

When Stanley Withers loses his third job in five years, his wife decides it is time she took a hand. But the methods she uses and the assistants she employs are highly unorthodox, to say the least, resulting in a tale of modern witchcraft involving one of the most talented and trouble-prone cats ever to survive 2000 life cycles. Alternate chapters are narrated by said cat, "Rasputin" by name.

COMMENTARIES ON LINE:

Entertaining, light fantasy. The main narrator is a cat. I would not have guessed it was written so long ago from the writing style and plot.

Clever, witty novel of modern witchcraft, superficially reminiscent of Fritz Leiber's CONJURE WIFE, but closer in tone to Shirley Jackson's COME ALONG WITH ME. Savage is a neglected talent from the era before ROSEMARY'S BABY.

I don't know what to make of this book. At times it reads like when Bell, Book and Candle goes bad; at other times it reminds me of a mash-up of Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife and an alternate reality Thorne Smith; one reviewer evoked the name of Shirley Jackson. I enjoyed the book, especially the sections narrated by Rasputin, but did not know which side I was supposed to root for.

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