"Cat Person," a piece of short fiction published by The New Yorker in 2017, tells the story of the brief relationship between 20-year-old Margot and Robert, a 34-year-old customer at the movie theater where she works. Margot and Robert embark on a casual romance, first by engaging in text messaging and later through a painfully awkward and unpleasant date that ends in awkward and unpleasant (from Margot's point of view) sex. Margot is nonetheless deeply anxious about breaking it off with Robert; a month after she finally does, she sees him at a bar, and he sends her a barrage of jealous, accusatory, harassing messages in response.
The story was published just after a new wave of the...
