Captain Cat

Robert Holles's Captain Cat is an excellent and it appears forgotten 1960 novel, about life at a British training camp for junior soldiers (high school age). Narrated in the first person by a new recruit, Harry Bell, it does a wonderful job of situating the reader in the atmospheric thick of the camp. Holles's command of Harry's "voice" is comparable to J.D. Salinger's handling of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye; anyone who enjoys that book should consider tracking down a copy of this one. It is not surprising to learn that Holles was a boy soldier himself, enlisting at age 14, because Captain Cat has that unfakable quality of being very close to the bone.

Format: Hardback - Good condition
Published: Bloomsbury Street London
Published: 1960