Sponsored
The Mourner's Bestiary - by Eiren Caffall (Hardcover)
$20.90 sale price when purchased online
$27.99 list price
Target Online store #3991
About this item
Highlights
- A critically-acclaimed literary memoir braiding together environmental research and the personal journey of generational healing, grief, and chronic illness.
- About the Author: EIREN CAFFALL is a writer and musician based in Chicago.
- 294 Pages
- Biography + Autobiography, Environmentalists & Naturalists
Description
Book Synopsis
A critically-acclaimed literary memoir braiding together environmental research and the personal journey of generational healing, grief, and chronic illness. "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." Publisher's Weekly Starred Review 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 filmmakerReview Quotes
A penetrating work that brims with tension.--Kristen Rabe "Foreword Reviews"
Eiren Caffall's impassioned debut memoir blends memory and research to pay tribute to family members lost to a genetic kidney disease--and to marine creatures threatened by ecological collapse.--Rebecca Foster "Shelf Awareness"
In this stunning and original debut, writer and musician Caffall draws links between hereditary illness and the fates of marine life in collapsing ecosystems. 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.--Starred Review "Publisher's Weekly"
Insightful and deeply researched [...] Caffall looks into the nuances of individual human survival and the survival of our planet as a whole.-- "Booktrib."
Beguiling, idiosyncratic: Eiren Caffall contributes to a growing memoir genre that explores illness and healing. The Mourner's Bestiary draws a poetic parallel between the body's experience of chronic disease and the marine ecosystems Caffall knows well--an unexpected juxtaposition that gives new dimension to the climate hazards we face and opportunities to address them. 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. Water becomes an element that draws us together.--Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant judge's citation
Eiren Caffall has produced some of the most powerful writing on the ecological crisis I have read anywhere. By looking at climate change through the lens of her illness and through the eyes of her unique son, problems that we so often push away because of the enormity of their size and their apparent distance from daily life suddenly become intimate and human-scale. We can suddenly allow repressed and suppressed truths to enter us and are forever changed. Caffall is a gifted writer, and this book is strong medicine.--Naomi Klein "author, social activist, and filmmaker"
About the Author
EIREN CAFFALL is a writer and musician based in Chicago. Her writing on loss and nature, oceans and extinction has appeared in Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, and the anthology Elementals: Volume IV Fire, forthcoming in 2024 from The Center for Humans and Nature. She received a 2023 Whiting Award in Creative Nonfiction, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and residencies at the Banff Centre, Millay Colony, MacDowell Colony (waitlisted), Hedgebrook, and Ragdale. Row House Publishing will release her first book and memoir, The Mourner's Bestiary, in 2024, and her novel, All the Water in the World, is slated for release by St. Martin's Press in early 2025.Dimensions (Overall): 8.3 Inches (H) x 5.6 Inches (W) x 1.3 Inches (D)
Weight: 1.0 Pounds
Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up
Sub-Genre: Environmentalists & Naturalists
Genre: Biography + Autobiography
Number of Pages: 294
Publisher: Row House Publishing
Format: Hardcover
Author: Eiren Caffall
Language: English
Street Date: October 15, 2024
TCIN: 91717572
UPC: 9781955905589
Item Number (DPCI): 247-09-0255
Origin: Made in the USA or Imported
If the item details above aren’t accurate or complete, we want to know about it.
Shipping details
Estimated ship dimensions: 1.3 inches length x 5.6 inches width x 8.3 inches height
Estimated ship weight: 1 pounds
We regret that this item cannot be shipped to PO Boxes.
This item cannot be shipped to the following locations: American Samoa (see also separate entry under AS), Guam (see also separate entry under GU), Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico (see also separate entry under PR), United States Minor Outlying Islands, Virgin Islands, U.S., APO/FPO
Return details
This item can be returned to any Target store or Target.com.
This item must be returned within 90 days of the date it was purchased in store, shipped, delivered by a Shipt shopper, or made ready for pickup.
See the return policy for complete information.