Zombies, Zodiacs and Sacrificial Cats

At its strongest and most resonant, Cat’s Pilgrimage is a coming-of-age story. Marilyn Bowering’s young heroine, Cathreen, begins as witness to a horrific Reena Virk–style attack on two fellow teens by a gang of their peers, and swiftly escapes from the guilt and loneliness this creates by flying to England to visit her father, Jag, who has recently returned there to his home village near Glastonbury. The offspring of two troubled people, Cathreen has been all but abandoned by her parents, and her ensuing journey through a bizarre labyrinth of other people’s unfinished business, coupled with her ultimate ability to feel compassion for the haunted monsters who are her mother and father, etch out an unusual and much-needed roadmap of the daunting task of growing up.

Like too many of the book’s storylines, however, the fate of the persecuted teens and the full significance of this shocking attack are never adequately developed, but rather are subjugated to a...