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Wearing the Cat - The Complete Novel - Volume One
Take a raunchy, rollicking, harrowing plunge into Life with “Wearing the Cat”.
“Wearing the Cat” is a comic picaresque novel divided into two volumes: “Wearing the Cat – The Complete Novel, Volume One” and “Wearing the Cat – The Complete Novel, Volume Two”
Set in 1988, with America near the height of her power, prestige, and influence, “Wearing the Cat” concerns the exuberant and blackly comic misadventures of Lt. Nick McGill, dentist in the United States Navy Dental Corps.
In “Wearing the Cat”, Lt Nick McGill feels that his life has gone wrong. He joined the Navy as a way to add excitement to his life only to discover a distinct lack of wine, women, and adventure in the day to day drill and fill of the Williamsville Naval Dental Clinic. Tooth decay? Oh, yeah. Plenty of that. Bad breath? Goes with the territory. The three little words? If only he didn’t have to hear those three little words ever again.
Worst of all, in his boredom and loneliness, McGill finds himself questioning past decisions, and feeling nostalgic about past girlfriends.
Perhaps all he needs to do is to get laid.
When into his life steps his new, wondrously sexy Dental Assistant, DT2 Sayers. That is, Dental Technician Second Class Sayers.
But, there’s a problem. Well, actually, two problems.
One, sex between officers and enlisted, dating even, is fraternization, a court-martial offense, which McGill’s Commanding Officer, the Old Man, is a stickler for. That is, when not giving McGill the kind of lecture which makes him want to count the freckles on his arm.
And two, there are rumors that DT2 Sayers got kicked out of Japan. By the Japanese government. What is that all about?
McGill’s idiotic yet brilliant solutions to his dilemmas lead to an exquisite series of surprises, twists, shocks, and laughs as just about everything that could possibly go wrong for McGill does. And changes his life forever.
Wry and ribald, deeply human and wildly hilarious, sexy and subversive, with excellent oral hygiene, “Wearing the Cat” is a fun, funny, and satisfying read.
“Wearing the Cat” is a comic picaresque novel divided into two volumes: “Wearing the Cat – The Complete Novel, Volume One” and “Wearing the Cat – The Complete Novel, Volume Two”
Set in 1988, with America near the height of her power, prestige, and influence, “Wearing the Cat” concerns the exuberant and blackly comic misadventures of Lt. Nick McGill, dentist in the United States Navy Dental Corps.
In “Wearing the Cat”, Lt Nick McGill feels that his life has gone wrong. He joined the Navy as a way to add excitement to his life only to discover a distinct lack of wine, women, and adventure in the day to day drill and fill of the Williamsville Naval Dental Clinic. Tooth decay? Oh, yeah. Plenty of that. Bad breath? Goes with the territory. The three little words? If only he didn’t have to hear those three little words ever again.
Worst of all, in his boredom and loneliness, McGill finds himself questioning past decisions, and feeling nostalgic about past girlfriends.
Perhaps all he needs to do is to get laid.
When into his life steps his new, wondrously sexy Dental Assistant, DT2 Sayers. That is, Dental Technician Second Class Sayers.
But, there’s a problem. Well, actually, two problems.
One, sex between officers and enlisted, dating even, is fraternization, a court-martial offense, which McGill’s Commanding Officer, the Old Man, is a stickler for. That is, when not giving McGill the kind of lecture which makes him want to count the freckles on his arm.
And two, there are rumors that DT2 Sayers got kicked out of Japan. By the Japanese government. What is that all about?
McGill’s idiotic yet brilliant solutions to his dilemmas lead to an exquisite series of surprises, twists, shocks, and laughs as just about everything that could possibly go wrong for McGill does. And changes his life forever.
Wry and ribald, deeply human and wildly hilarious, sexy and subversive, with excellent oral hygiene, “Wearing the Cat” is a fun, funny, and satisfying read.
386 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 14, 2017
231 people want to read
About the author
H.D. Woodard
4 books5 followersH D Woodard lived in Japan while a lieutenant in the United States Navy Dental Corps. During his college and dental education, he worked as a roustabout on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and in the swamps of that peninsular leftover of far South Louisiana, Plaquemines Parish. He also worked as a bartender in Los Angeles.
He enjoys the novels of Japanese authors, Haruki Murakami and Shusaku Endo. H D Woodard is also a fan of the Big Comic Novel such as “Catch-22”, “A Confederacy of Dunces”, “Gravity’s Rainbow” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” as well as the shorter comic novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Evelyn Waugh, Douglas Adams, Tom Sharpe, Kingsley Amis, and P G Wodehouse.
Since few of these types of novels are written these days, H D Woodard decided to write one for his own enjoyment and for others to enjoy. That novel is “Wearing the Cat”.
His long-term goal is to become a full-time author.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 3, 2018
There is some good comic writing here, but…
The book falls into a common pitfall of military fiction, namely an obsession with rank and a profusion of jargon that will be obscure to readers without a military background. The novel states on page 4 that “The only important distinction is rank”. This attitude is immediately evident and character development suffers accordingly. It seems deeply ingrained in the author that when he has told us a character’s rank, he has told us that character’s most important characteristic. Thus, he fails to appreciate that, to the non-military reader, he has told us virtually nothing (and actually nothing if the reader is not conversant with naval ranks). The author does not understand that many, possibly most, non-military readers do not know the hierarchy of military ranks and do not care to learn, because it has no relevance to them.
So when the author immediately launches into, and assumes familiarity with, ranks and jargon such as Lt., DT2, Petty Officer, DN, BM1, OIC, Captain, DA, O-6, sub-O-6, Div O., Lcdr, boatswain's mate, etc., non-miltary readers such as myself tend to have their eyes glaze over and lose interest. The author seems to think a comic novel focusing on bureaucratic infighting in the 1980s US Navy Dental Corps will have some general appeal. I am skeptical that it has any appeal at all beyond a very narrow audience, and how much of that audience reads indie comic novels?
The problematic military jargon is compounded by a fair amount of dental jargon. While I understand more of this than the military jargon, I care even less. The author does manage to crack a funny dentist joke or two, but I strongly suspect that he is just repeating the kind of dentist jokes that are passed among dentists, as lawyer jokes are among lawyers. And I suspect there are far more funny lawyer jokes, having attended a swearing-in ceremony for newly-minted lawyers where the presiding judge told lawyer jokes non-stop from start to finish. In general, I think most readers will agree that dental humor is an oxymoron.
It is billed as raunchy and it is, but I didn’t find the raunchiness unduly objectionable, although some readers will find it adolescent, and not without some justification. I don’t mind a little adolescent humor and this is done somewhat better than most attempts.
I am curious, however, as to what is going on with the book's title? A good title should pique a potential reader’s interest, or at least give some clue as to its general themes. This title actually deterred me from opening the book for months after I received it and I still have no idea how it relates to the story.
All that said, there are some promising scenes, notably the nightclub pickup scene and its immediate aftermath back at the apartment. Here the author manages to be both comic and even touching with the description of the plain girl who is overcompensating for getting dumped in a recent divorce by studying sex manuals. I think it is telling that the book had to get away from both the military and dentistry for anything to genuinely interest me. Alas, it promptly returns to the military and dentistry and I abandoned the book at that point, knowing that it is 900+ pages long and not being willing to risk such a slog through an indie novel about naval dentistry for the occasional interesting scene.
I know that writers are advised to “write what they know”, but I think that directive should clearly be countermanded for anything having to do with the US Naval Dental Corps. Still, the author shows some promise and seems to have had a varied career, so he has other experiences he could mine. I would encourage him to focus more on much shorter comic novels with a much more general appeal. Among authors he admires, a lot less interminable Thomas Pynchon and a lot more delightful and broadly appealing P.G. Wodehouse.
The book falls into a common pitfall of military fiction, namely an obsession with rank and a profusion of jargon that will be obscure to readers without a military background. The novel states on page 4 that “The only important distinction is rank”. This attitude is immediately evident and character development suffers accordingly. It seems deeply ingrained in the author that when he has told us a character’s rank, he has told us that character’s most important characteristic. Thus, he fails to appreciate that, to the non-military reader, he has told us virtually nothing (and actually nothing if the reader is not conversant with naval ranks). The author does not understand that many, possibly most, non-military readers do not know the hierarchy of military ranks and do not care to learn, because it has no relevance to them.
So when the author immediately launches into, and assumes familiarity with, ranks and jargon such as Lt., DT2, Petty Officer, DN, BM1, OIC, Captain, DA, O-6, sub-O-6, Div O., Lcdr, boatswain's mate, etc., non-miltary readers such as myself tend to have their eyes glaze over and lose interest. The author seems to think a comic novel focusing on bureaucratic infighting in the 1980s US Navy Dental Corps will have some general appeal. I am skeptical that it has any appeal at all beyond a very narrow audience, and how much of that audience reads indie comic novels?
The problematic military jargon is compounded by a fair amount of dental jargon. While I understand more of this than the military jargon, I care even less. The author does manage to crack a funny dentist joke or two, but I strongly suspect that he is just repeating the kind of dentist jokes that are passed among dentists, as lawyer jokes are among lawyers. And I suspect there are far more funny lawyer jokes, having attended a swearing-in ceremony for newly-minted lawyers where the presiding judge told lawyer jokes non-stop from start to finish. In general, I think most readers will agree that dental humor is an oxymoron.
It is billed as raunchy and it is, but I didn’t find the raunchiness unduly objectionable, although some readers will find it adolescent, and not without some justification. I don’t mind a little adolescent humor and this is done somewhat better than most attempts.
I am curious, however, as to what is going on with the book's title? A good title should pique a potential reader’s interest, or at least give some clue as to its general themes. This title actually deterred me from opening the book for months after I received it and I still have no idea how it relates to the story.
All that said, there are some promising scenes, notably the nightclub pickup scene and its immediate aftermath back at the apartment. Here the author manages to be both comic and even touching with the description of the plain girl who is overcompensating for getting dumped in a recent divorce by studying sex manuals. I think it is telling that the book had to get away from both the military and dentistry for anything to genuinely interest me. Alas, it promptly returns to the military and dentistry and I abandoned the book at that point, knowing that it is 900+ pages long and not being willing to risk such a slog through an indie novel about naval dentistry for the occasional interesting scene.
I know that writers are advised to “write what they know”, but I think that directive should clearly be countermanded for anything having to do with the US Naval Dental Corps. Still, the author shows some promise and seems to have had a varied career, so he has other experiences he could mine. I would encourage him to focus more on much shorter comic novels with a much more general appeal. Among authors he admires, a lot less interminable Thomas Pynchon and a lot more delightful and broadly appealing P.G. Wodehouse.
December 3, 2017
I have made it to page 129 of this book that I won Volume One and Volume Two on Goodreads. I seriously doubt that I read anymore. So far it has been a fairly boring book about a naval dentist who is basically only looking for sex. And there have been several scenes of bad sex in the first 129 pages. Quite often when I finish a book I give it to someone else to read. This book will probably be tossed out. Both volumes.
October 27, 2019
I won this book through Goodreads. Funny and sexy book about a Naval dentist and his ups and downs through life.
September 14, 2017
I received this as a Goodreads giveaway. I entered because the description made the book sound fun and different. I received both Volume One and Volume Two. Exciting! Now two months later, I have only read 110 pages of Vol 1. I have books all over the house and this one is next to a chair I use frequently. So not from lack of exposure. As the description starts "Take a raunchy" which holds true but then it states "rollicking, harrowing plunge". Okay? in the sex fantasies of a dude who happens to be a Naval dentist? naval, plunge? I don't like to give up on books so I'll give it until halfway to see what else happens. Also, I find the other male characters blend together. I'll reserve my rating until I am further along. Mr Woodward does write well.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews