Writer Caleb Carr is back with a new book after walking away from his career

this morning Caleb Carr Carr's first big hit came 30 years ago when he published the alienist a thriller about the hunt for a serial killer in the late 1800s wrapped in a clever mix of fiction and history then he wrote a sequel another bestseller but 25 years ago Carr walked away from most of it buying a big piece of property in Upstate New York so he could build a house and live alone in isolation or not as it turns out Carr found a companion for the the journey and his new book is called my beloved monster Masha the half wild rescue cats who rescued me when you told the publisher or your agent you wanted to do this I didn't you you didn't no I was supposed to be doing something else Caleb Carr was supposed to be working on a third alienist book with good reason the first one was a sensation and became a TV series what kind of do could do such a thing the alienist interweaved the fictional search for a serial killer with real history when Teddy Roosevelt served as commissioner of the New York City Police Department my off tomorrow or your badge on my desk Captain Connor as you command Mr Roosevelt but instead of that new sequel car was using his writing to work through his grief over the loss of his pet I was nine months into it before you know my editor called and said okay get down to your agents's office we're all going to meet and you're going to bring whatever you've been doing and they said what we all thought it was going to be a lawsuit a few months later car delivered my beloved monster Masha the half wild rescue cat who rescued me which tells the story of car's connection with cats from an early age when he was raised in a violent household in Greenwich Village Carr's father Lucian was a key figure in the Beat Generation and is credited with bringing together Alan Ginsburg and Jack kowak that's the three of them in this rare 1959 film Carr about four years old can be seen with his mother and siblings the tell them Lucian car is innocent lucian's friendship with Ginsburg was also the subject of the 2013 movie Kill Your Darlings expression of self the true uninhibited uncensored expression of the self car says his father who served two years in prison for manslaughter before Caleb was born was an abusive alcoholic who often beat him and frequently pushed him down the stairs so I was up all night sort of observing what the adults were doing in this insane household of ours and the cats were my companions there and it quickly became apparent that our behaviors were so similar cats are very smart about knowing where they should be and where they shouldn't be and I tried to imitate that as much as I could I failed most of the time but I I tried to and they just had they were the first things in the world who showed me the kind of just affection and attention that was absent pretty much from my world Carr never married and says he chose not to have children to break the chain of abuse he moved away from all of it I was exhausted by New York by that point I bet it was a childhood fantasy of mine to own this Valley to build a big Stone House the implications are obvious all the kind of permanence and gravitas that we had not had as kids it was a hard house to look at and say sure I belong here I mean it's ridiculous in a lot of ways but then she came and literally she walked in and she said yeah it's about right for me yeah yeah and that watching her make it her home really allowed me to make it my home she loved the stairs to Nowhere oh she did love them she could get up those stairs so fast in the beginning when she was pretty healthy it was really was like somebody was pouring gold up the stairs this streak of golden white it's just amazing my beloved monster is about Carr and masha's life together including masha's encounter with a Fisher even the time car says she successfully fended off a bear as different as this book is from the first page I said this is Caleb car in subject and treatment I think it's very different from anything I've done but I suspect the voice is there is still there absolutely it's it's it's it's it's unmissable there still is a Darkness there that's in everything I write why were you able to establish a connection with a cat in a way that you could never establish with a person trust I mean trust is the is the quick answer I trusted cats people not so much this was the love story of your life you know it's such a loaded thing to say my cat of 17 years was the love of my life uh except that it happens to be true and that's the wonderful thing she used to do when I was in a lot of pain she would lie in front of me and just roll over like that and just try to be as cute as and comforting as possible we shot this interview last fall because car didn't know if he'd make it to the book's publication date he has he shared with us terminal cancer what is your diagnosis right now not good but I'm here the danger with especially this kind of cancer is that you can go along pretty good for a long time and then the drop off can be quick MH but it certainly is you know I promised her for all the later years of her life I would look at her and just say while I was working I would look at her and just say Masha someday I'm going to make you famous because you deserve to be a legend and I would like before we see each other again I would like to know whether or not that happened he's about to find out if that's going to happen as my beloved monster is released this week I mean this is a bold move to be working on this when everybody thought he was doing something else everybody was expecting something else he talked to Caleb car he said I had no choice I had to write this you know and now we know cats too Go to Heaven There you go well he says they'll he's looking forward to them being reunited so we thank Caleb Carr for the time and and what is a very as I said in the in the book even though it's different than anything in the story even though it's different than anything else he has written it sounds like and it reads like other things he's written his voice is there his voice is there and never underestimate what an animal can do and how what they can do for you

Channel: CBS News

Views: 3,117

Keywords: CBS Saturday Morning, CBS News, video, writer, caleb carr, book, career, my beloved monster, author

Id: L7hVBKXLNac

Length: 7min 28sec (448 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2024