Mary Savage (2) (1925–)

A two-part memoir: the first half describing the crisis-ridden life of a desperately ill woman who seems to have attempted suicide (quite ineffectively) with monotonous regularity, the second half written after one of her attempts nearly succeeded and she had the proverbial wake-up call and finally went into real recovery. The author, who was also a novelist, was married to Davis Dresser, who wrote mystery novels under the name Brett Halliday. I think today she might have been diagnosed with show more a borderline personality. She does an effective job describing the various treatments, psychotherapies (including LSD-facilitated therapy) and hospitalizations she went through, beginning during World War II.

This is well-written, but it feels unfinished to me -- I find myself wondering what happened to her, whether she actually kept to the path of mental health after she finished her book, or fell back into her old ways. I looked online but I can't find anything about her later life. show less

I first read this little book in 1965, when I was a shy 14 year old who would have loved having some witchy powers to command. 50 years on, it's a bit more silly than I found it back then, but still well-written and a lot of fun.

Stanley Withers, a hapless ad executive who has been laid off from his job for the third time, lives a seemingly idyllic life in southern California. Stan doesn't know his wife is a witch, and his cat is a familiar who has lived through some 2000 life cycles, and show more that dark forces Stan can't begin to understand are about to disrupt his life and his placid community.

Alternating chapters tell the story from Stan's point of view, and the first-person point of view of Rasputin the cat.

As Rasputin reflects on all his many lives and experiences:

"All of the past knowledge, the past experiences, the past lives. Wizardry in Wales ... witchcraft in Scotland ... the magicians of Germany ... the Midsummer fires of Norway ... the Inquisition ... the meetings of the Druids ... the honour of Egypt ... the responsibility in Siam ... the wisdom in China ...

And you end up being buried alive in somebody's backyard in California."

I still love this book. show less

I picked up this odd little (and it is one of those little Dell books) in a used book store when I came across it by chance. I can't resist these small size Dells or any book with the odd 45 cent cover price. It was not something I had heard of before.

So what is it? Sort of an alternate version of Bewitched, set in Los Angeles, where an advertising man loses his job despite his wife's enlisting of a witch's cat to try to help. The cat also narrates every other chapter. It's quite interesting show more at first and eventually comes to a well enough done conclusion, but it never quite catches fire. I think this is because there is never really a scary threat to a character we care about. The cat suffers the most, but since he's narrating, we figure he must come out okay in the end. All in all, an entertaining read and a bit of a novelty, but not something that makes me want to run out and find Mary Savage's other works. There are a few, but as of this writing, she doesn't even merit a Wikipedia entry. She was, however, married to Davis Dresser, better know as Brett Halliday, from 1961 until his death in 1977. show less

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.