Beguiling, idiosyncratic: Eiren Caffall makes an original contribution to the growing genre of memoirs that explore 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 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 judges citation

Eiren Caffall has produced some of the most powerful writing on the ecological crisis that I have read anywhere. By looking at climate change through the lens of her own 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 we are forever changed. Caffall is a gifted writer, and this book is strong medicine.

– Naomi Klein