Resident Book Review of “My Beloved Monster”

Resident Rob Pond will review My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me by Caleb Carr [New York: Little, Brown, 2024] on Tuesday, August 18, 2026 at 7 PM in the Auditorium. This is his review for the August 2026 issue of The Sunburst.

Maybe you’ve had an animal friend you loved and cared for—whose moods, likes, and needs you knew well. Were you loved and cared for in return? Did your animal friend seem to know your own moods and needs?

In this remarkable memoir, published just weeks before his death in 2024, military historian and novelist Caleb Carr fully explores these questions.

A lifelong cat lover, Carr adopted Masha, a Siberian Forest Cat, from a shelter when she was still a kitten. Masha and Carr proceeded to live their separate lives together—Masha freely roaming the nearby forests of New York’s Taconic Mountains as Carr immersed himself in his writing. Throughout their quiet life together, miles from civilization, they developed an extraordinary relationship of mutual love and care.

Carr explores his love for cats that began in early childhood. He shows us how love can grow between humans and animals, delving into the origins of this love, the mutual dependencies that develop, and the deeply satisfying companionship enjoyed. In the end we learn that cats can love us back, albeit (as any cat lover knows!) strictly on their own terms.

Rob Pond, a materials engineer, held quality assurance positions at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant and taught at the U.S. Naval Academy, Johns Hopkins University, and Loyola University Maryland. At Charlestown, he has been an ELLIC contributor in the area of nuclear power generation. Rob enjoyed reading extensively to his five children, until they enjoyed reading themselves. This is his first Book Review.

~Janet Neer and Barbara Johnson, Book Review Co-Coordinators~