Metro Detroit author of 'Cat People to Judge in Art and Life' offers opinion on JD Vance

Sometimes a book arrives just at the right time, after some really irritating mansplaining.

Such is the case with “Cat People to Judge in Art and Life,” the latest in the bestselling humor book series by metro Detroit author Nicole Tersigni.

With past titles like “Men to Avoid in Art and Life” and “Friends to Keep in Art and Life," Tersigni has made an art form out of combining hilarious, often deliciously snarky captions with classic paintings.

One of her classics is the combination of an 1827 painting by Belgian artist Jean Henri de Coen of a man talking to a serious-looking young woman and this caption: "I can see you're very busy, but I just had to tell you that you'd be so much prettier if you smiled."

"Cat People to Judge in Art and Life" focuses on the bond between felines and the people devoted to making them happy. Its caption for a painting of a woman of yore cradling a hefty cat on her lap goes: "You need more exercise, Chonk E. Cheese. You’re getting too big for the BabyBjorn."

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 In a case of total coincidence (or is it karma?), “Cat People to Judge in Art and Life,” which officially debuts Sept. 3, arrives as comments made in 2021 by vice presidential candidate JD Vance have been resurrected. They turned cat people into a political target.

During a Fox News interview conducted when he was running for U.S. Senate in Ohio, Vance told Tucker Carlson: "We are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too."

Vance continued: “You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. If we want a healthy ruling class in this country, we should invest more, we should vote more, we should support more people who actually have kids, 'cause those are the people who ultimately have a more direct stake in this country.”

Vance’s remarks on "people without children" have been criticized by on both sides of the political aisle and angered everyone from Meghan McCain to Jennifer Aniston.

Asked about Vance's cat people slam and its unexpected relevancy to her book, Tersigni said via email: “JD Vance and people of his ilk have used ‘childless cat ladies’ as punchlines since the dawn of cats. It’s shorthand for women who speak their minds and live on their own terms. In other words, women that men like him are afraid of. Women who really don’t think about him at all.”

As for the topic and title of her new book, Tersigni writes in the introduction, “I love cat people. I am a cat person. But as anyone who has had and/or loved a cat will tell you: They can be pretty darn judgmental, especially for creatures who lick their own butts.”

You can order copies of "Cat People to Judge in Art and Life" at Amazon.com or Bookshop.org, which has raised more than $32 million for independent bookstores. Once the book is out, signed copies will be available at Sidetrack Books in Royal Oak.

And speaking of timing, the 2024 presidential election takes place on Nov. 5. That’s less that a week after National Cat Day on Oct. 29.

Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.