The title of Why Cats Hate Birds very much reflects the collections themes. Are we trapped by our nature? And what is our understanding of nature? What is black and white, straight and gay, reality and fantasy, Canadian and Barbadian? The stories in Why Cats Hate Birds are Armstrongs way of saying that such distinctions are not natural but of our own construction. The work spans the length of Armstrongs writing career. The earliest, Flying in Gods Face, which inspired his novel Of Water and Rock, is set in the 1960s, though the majority take place in a today familiar to us all. Three stories in particular are linked by the character Charles Blackette: Kingdom of Fools, Invention and Blood is Thick. They explore Blackettes life as a black man who battles his notion of self. But, at heart, all the stories in Why Cats Hate Birds, perceptive, resonant, emotionally honest, are an attempt to break those silos that separate us, and make us realize that other peoples stories are our stories.