The Cat Tender

Maggie Mullen is an overweight twenty-seven-year-old woman who has built a quiet, simple life for herself that revolves around her cattending business, the time she spends with her own faithful feline Lucy, and her enduring love for Frank Sinatra.

But things are quickly becoming complicated. Maggie is asked to be the maid of honor at her younger sister's wedding: a nightmare prospect that threatens to take Maggie from her carefully constructed comfort zone and force her to face her past, present, and future.

The life she's been leading is her own . . . but is it enough?

The Cat Tender is Marty Drapkin's third published work of fiction. His first was Now and at the Hour (2009), followed by Ten Nobodies (and their somebodies) in 2012. He's written and published nonfiction books and articles in his pre-retirement professional field, county jail operations. He is also a photographer, specializing in black-and-white portraits of mothers and daughters as well as street photographs. He still uses film.

Marty and his wife, Erica, live in Cross Plains, Wisconsin, with a motley crew of dogs and cats, most of whom have issues. His daughter and her family, including two highly talented grandsons, live in Seattle.