The Mourner's Bestiary

Ended my year of nonfiction with this, and couldn’t have picked a better title. The writing is stunning- incredibly lucid and lyrical, and then throws a haymaker in the middle of a paragraph. I can’t remember reading a blended memoir that weaves stories together without the use of big, sweeping tran......more

This was such a sad book. Caffall's bio blurb says she's a musician. I'm unfamiliar with her works. I have no idea who she is outside of the context of this book. If it had not been for self-description, I might've thought she was a marine ecologist. There was a lot of minutiae in each chapter for e......more

Without a doubt one of the best books I've read in a very long time. The writing is stunning, the science is fascinating and the way the author weaves her life into the natural world is just incredible. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.......more

This is in no way an unbiased review of Eiren Caffall’s 2024 memoir, The Mourner’s Bestiary. I’ve known Eiren since we were teenagers together growing up in Amherst, MA. We were part of a tight gaggle of friends who made theatre together, supported each other through joyously fun and devastatingly h......more

Easily one of the best books I’ve read this year. So powerful and moving, so wise and filled with such beautiful prose. Cafall takes memoir to another level with this book, creating a parallel narrative between her struggles with PKD, a devastating kidney disease that has been in her family for gene......more