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Title details for The Mourner's Bestiary by Eiren Caffall - Available

The Mourner's Bestiary

by Eiren Caffall
Eiren Caffall
Audiobook
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A critically-acclaimed literary memoir braiding together environmental research and the personal journey of generational healing, grief, and chronic illness.

Author Eiren Caffall is the inheritor of a family legacy of two hundred years of genetic kidney disease and the mother of a child who may inherit that legacy.

A literary memoir on loss, chronic illness, and generational healing, Caffall's The Mourner's Bestiary is also a meditation on grief and survival told through the stories of animals in two collapsing marine ecosystems—the Gulf of Maine and the Long Island Sound—and the lives of a family facing a life-threatening illness on their shores.

The Gulf of Maine is the world's fastest-warming marine ecosystem, and the Long Island Sound has been the site of conservation battles that predict the fights ahead for the Gulf.

"Beguiling, idiosyncratic [...] Caffall writes with plangent intensity about our responsibility toward the planet, and her eye for the wonder and beauty of ocean life pierces the illusion of disconnected existence." ? Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant judges citation

"Eiren Caffall has produced some of the most powerful writing on the ecological crisis I have read anywhere. Caffall is a gifted writer, and this book is strong medicine." ? Naomi Klein, author, social activist, and filmmaker

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 29, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9798868716690
      • File size: 271938 KB
      • Duration: 09:26:31

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from September 30, 2024
      In this stunning and original debut, writer and musician Caffall draws links between hereditary illness and the fates of marine life in collapsing ecosystems. For 200 years, Caffall’s family has passed down polycystic kidney disease (PKD), a chronic condition whose sufferers have an average life expectancy of 50 years. The author first learned of the “Caffall Curse” at nine years old, when the disease was starting to kill her father. At the same time, she was learning about the environmental decay affecting crabs and eels in the Long Island Sound, where her family often vacationed. In the present, a middle-aged Caffall reflects on her complicated feelings about parenthood, knowing she may have passed PKD on to her son. When the two of them take a trip to an island off the coast of Maine, Caffall has a seizure. After being rescued by the Coast Guard, she reflects on the algae threatening lobster and humpback whales in the Gulf of Maine, which gives the animals symptoms similar to those brought on by PKD. While the memoir’s conceit might feel forced in lesser hands, Caffall brilliantly parallels her family’s suffering with large-scale ecological upheaval, maintaining a flicker of hope for the future in both cases. This deserves a wide readership. Agent: Julia Lord, Julia Lord Literary.

    • Library Journal

      March 1, 2025

      Writer and musician Caffall debuts with a bestiary for modern times. Styling her book after the morality-based texts popular in the Middle Ages, Caffall offers a natural history of sea creatures. As she credits each living thing with a special existential reason for being, she interweaves reflections on her son's curiosity, her father's undying love, and her mother's stricter ways. Narrating her own work, Caffall considers how polycystic kidney disease (PKD) could curtail her longevity just as ecological threats endanger entire ocean ecosystems. Caffall invites listeners into her memories of the Gulf of Maine and Long Island Sound, where she became enamored with the Atlantic's coastal waters. She candidly describes how she endured the demise of her parents' codependent marriage, fell in and out of love--twice--and faced divorce to raise a child alone, knowing that he may inherit PKD. Exploring her favorite childhood spaces with her son prompted Caffall to write about environmental destruction, genetic illness, forgiveness, and healing; this book is a wake-up call for all seeking a path forward in uncertain times. VERDICT A compelling memoir, detailing the author's passionate struggle to illuminate imperiled ecosystems even as a degenerative condition forces her to rethink work, parenting, and love.--Sharon Sherman

      Copyright 2025 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Eiren Caffall lives with polycystic kidney disease, a congenital disorder that killed most of her family members before they were 50. Her performance is graceful and authentic, and she draws the listener into her story with a clear voice and lyrical pacing. Caffall parallels her own ticking time bomb with the developing disaster in the ocean. Her beloved Long Island Sound and Gulf of Maine are polluted from industry and sewage that are making them oxygen-deprived. Warming waters are allowing invasive creatures to crowd out the native species. Caffall's emotions are right there in her voice. She grieves as her father's kidney fails, relishes her son's wonder at a horseshoe crab, and alternately feels proud of her mother or completely let down in their complicated relationship. A.B. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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