Cat Person and Other Stories

Kristen Roupenian graduated from Barnard and holds a PhD in African Literature from Harvard. She is a Zell Fellow in the University of Michigan MFA program, and has received numerous awards for her work. She has studied with Laura Kasischke, Jeff Van der Meer and Claire Vaye Watkins. Her short story 'Cat Person' became a viral sensation when it was published by the New Yorker at the end of 2017, dubbed ‘the most talked-about short story ever’. You Know You Want This is her first book.

I kept getting lured into another and another [of the stories]… [Kristen Roupenian has] one of those brains that feel out-of-this-world brilliant and also completely askew… What’s special about Cat Person, and the rest of the stories in You Know You Want This is the author’s expert control of language, character, story — her ability to write stories that feel told, and yet so unpretentious and accessible that we think they must be true.