Ernie:
A Photographer's Memoir

By Tony Mendoza
Chronicle, $12.95
ISBN 0811829634

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Ernie snags the spotlight -- again

Originally published in 1985, Tony Mendoza's pictorial account of apartment life with a charming, if cracked, cat named Ernie was a hit with animal lovers who snapped up an estimated 100,000 copies. Now the book is back in a new edition, Ernie: A Photographer's Memoir, that features better quality prints of this one-of-a-kind feline in all his furry fury.

Mendoza's black and white pictures prove the perfect medium for Ernie's many moods. Cat to the core and more, he appears, at times, downright demonic. Beneath the smoothly groomed, two-tone coat lurks a beast with a taste for birds, bugs and cardboard boxes, a creature whose face displays, by turns, otherworldly wrath, steely placidity and a distinctly human indignation.

The narrative, told in tandem by photographer and feline, provides two different perspectives on life in a New York loft. Indeed, the killer cusps and needle claws keep Mendoza on the defensive. While the Hyde side of Ernie is much in evidence, the Jekyll in him shines through, too. Some of Mendoza's photos show a kinder, gentler cat, the sort of lolling creature who lazes in drawers and dozes in clothes hampers. Feline fans will love Ernie, for he is, in the end, the quintessential cat -- a cross between a kitten and a tiger. Just don't get too close to those claws.