The Cat Herder

Some lives follow a carefully drawn plan. Geir Erik Mortil’s life required something closer to herding cats. It begins in the early hours of 5 September 1986, when a devastating hotel fire transforms an ordinary night shift into a fight for survival. But the fire is only the beginning. From backstage corridors and years at the Norwegian Opera and Nationalballet to love, ambition, money, politics and increasingly dangerous choices, The Cat Herder follows a life lived far outside the usual boundaries. Along the way, Mortil encounters artists, criminals, dreamers, bureaucrats and people who refuse to fit comfortably into any category—including himself. Told with dark humour, uncomfortable honesty and little interest in protecting the author’s reputation, this is not the polished story of a man who always made the right decisions. It is the story of someone who survived the wrong ones, witnessed the absurd machinery behind respectable society, and discovered how quickly order can turn into chaos. At times funny, frightening and painfully personal, The Cat Herder is a memoir about fire, theatre, love, stupidity, money, politics—and everything else that happens when life refuses to behave.