Lilian Braun, The Author Who . . .

Lilian Jackson Braun is the renowned American author who penned the much loved “The Cat Who . . .” series of mystery novels. At this point, Braun has written 29 Cat Who books, in addition to guides to the novels, a cookbook, and a collection of short stories. While there is no end in sight to her Cat series, Braun has stated that she is working on a final book to be published after her death. Braun is currently 92 years old.

There is not much known about Lilian Braun, as she has been successful in keeping her personal life private. We do know that she was born in Michigan in 1916, and worked for the Detroit Free Press. She published her first book, “The Cat Who Could Read Backwards,” in 1966 and published two more books in 1967 and 1968. However, at this point the public wanted more blood, sex, and violence in their mystery literature, and Braun was not willing to compromise her novels in this way. She dropped off the literary map until 1986, when her second husband, Earl Bettinger, convinced her to resubmit her last novel, “The Cat Who Saw Red,” to a publisher. The book was published and an entirely new generation of ‘cat lovers’ discovered the gentle and humorous series of mystery books.

An admitted technophobe, like many in her generation, Braun writes her novels on an old fashion typewriter. She writes every day, despite her advanced age and declining eyesight, and a new Cat Who novel appears every January. Her stories always center around her main character, James Qwilleran and his two siamese cats, KoKo and Yum Yum, and follows them as they stumble upon and solve various mysteries.