{"id":77218,"date":"2014-09-24T13:05:58","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T17:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=77218"},"modified":"2014-09-24T13:14:51","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T17:14:51","slug":"pati-hill-1921-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/24\/pati-hill-1921-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Pati Hill, 1921\u20132014"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pati-Hill-600\"<\/a>

An illustration by B. Whistler Dabney for Pati Hill\u2019s essay \u201cCats,\u201d from our ninth issue.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Paris Review<\/em> was saddened to learn that Pati Hill, a frequent contributor and longtime friend of the magazine, died last Friday at ninety-three. A native of Kentucky, Hill worked during the forties and fifties as a model in France, where she was part of the same community of expats that included George Plimpton and the founders of the Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Over the years, beginning with our second issue, Hill published six stories and an essay with the Review<\/em>; her last contribution, part of a series of sketches, came in Spring 1981. She wrote a pair of well-regarded books\u2014a novel and a memoir\u2014in the fifties, but today she\u2019s probably best known for her art, which made early and innovative use of an IBM photocopier, as an obituary in the Times<\/em> says<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To celebrate Hill, we\u2019re posting her essay \u201cCats<\/a>,\u201d from our Summer 1955 issue, in its entirety, with a pair of illustrations by B. Whistler Dabney. It begins:<\/p>\n

\n

I like cats as far as creatures go. I like almost any animal that does not have horns or scales on it for that matter, but I especially like cats. Any sort and denomination: spotted or solid, fat or thin, with and without fleas. I like them and admire them and almost anything they do is a pleasure to me.<\/p>\n

The way they can walk around the rim of a bathtub, for instance, without falling in and the way they can get comfortable in any old place. There is nothing better than a cat looking out from behind a pot of geraniums on a windowsill or walking slowly down a country road of a summer evening. There is something at once comforting and disquieting about a cat which makes him attractive.<\/p>\n

They are wonderful when they stick their noses cautiously into a hole and then back out again, and when they flatten down their ears the tops of their heads look like giant bumblebees. Also they have marvelous feet. When a cat puts his paw on the head of a half eaten fish it is at once delicate and dainty and fierce and when he retracts his claws again he is most beautifully innocent like firearms in a shop window or a pin-cushion with no pins in it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Paris Review was saddened to learn that Pati Hill, a frequent contributor and longtime friend of the magazine, died last Friday at ninety-three. A native of Kentucky, Hill worked during the forties and fifties as a model in France, where she was part of the same community of expats that included George Plimpton and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[8017,364,865,14,15415,11989,270,15413,15414],"class_list":["post-77218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-memoriam","tag-cats","tag-essays","tag-france","tag-george-plimpton","tag-memorial","tag-obituaries","tag-paris","tag-pati-hill","tag-photocopiers"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPati Hill, 1921\u20132014<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read her essay \u201cCats,\u201d from our Summer 1955 issue, in its entirety.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/24\/pati-hill-1921-2014\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pati Hill, 1921\u20132014 by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"September 24, 2014 \u2013 The Paris Review was saddened to learn that Pati Hill, a frequent contributor and longtime friend of the magazine, died last Friday at ninety-three. 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