The Cat Connection

A memoir with surprising twists and turns, this book is the true story of a man with multiple careers and discoveries. Weaving his tale among experiences with a lifetime of cats, he takes us places such as the pilot's seat of his airplane as he fights to get home in terrible weather, and deep in a cave under a Virginia mountain where he discovers a section never explored by man and uncovers a mystery still unsolved. Realizing that cat DNA is more than 99% the same as human, he makes an amazing discovery about how the two species can communicate. This is a remarkable journey and one you will not soon forget.
About the Author: Lawrence Matthews is now retired and lives with his wife, Shoshana, in Cape Coral, Florida. Prior to this he and his family lived for 25 years on the Pocomoke River on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Before that they lived for 15 years in southwestern Ohio (near Lebanon, halfway between Dayton and Cincinnati) in a big Shaker farmhouse surrounded by barns, pond, and horse trails. Both the farm and the riverbank, he says, were wonderful places to raise children and pets. He has worked professionally in film and computers since the 50's, when his still pictures first began to win awards. In the 1970's he helped pioneer the use of large computers to create animated motion picture sequences. In the 90's he began working with digital photographic techniques and custom programming, using his own computer tools to create artwork. Taking advantage of a lifetime's experience in both fields, in 1999 he formed Digi-Art and began offering painted portraits on canvas digitally made from his photographs. His work was the pioneering effort for offering an instant giclee canvas process for portraits. His degree from Penn State is in Journalism with a minor in Geology. He has produced, edited and directed commercial motion pictures, written countless magazine articles, explored cave systems for the National Park Service and raced sports cars. For some years he was Editor of the NSS News, the monthly magazine of the National Speleological Society (professional cave explorers). He is a Fellow of the Society and served on its Board of Directors. He is an instrument rated pilot and a noted pet photographer. He still makes prints from his collection of more than 8,000 dog and cat portraits. He has produced portraits at hundreds of dog and cat shows, as well as landscapes, nature, and general subjects. A selection of his images, both photos and paintings, are featured on the website FineArtAmerica.com.