Fiction. Beset with environmental disaster, animal-like children, and the failure of traditional roles, the twenty-six fathers of Cataclysm Baby raise their desperate voices to reveal the strange stations of frustrated parenthood, to proclaim familial thrashings against the fading light of our exhausted planet, its glory grown wild again. As the known world disappears, these beleaguered and all-too-breakable men cling ever tighter to the duties of an unrecoverable past, even as their children rush ahead, evolve away. Unflinching in the face of apocalypse and unblinking before the complicated gaze of parental love, Matt Bell's Cataclysm Baby is a powerful chronicle of our last days, and of the tentative graces that might fill the hours of our dusk.
Cataclysm Baby (The Mud Luscious Press Novel(La))
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Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
"In extraordinary language, with deep feeling, Matt Bell has crafted a baby name book for the apocalypse, a gorgeous, brilliant, often darkly hilarious and always moving novella. Written with an ingenuity and joy that call to mind Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, each chapter is a treasure: Here are beast of burden children, larval girls, subterranean daughters and choirs of sirens, combustible baby boys. I loved this book and want to recommend it to every human parent and child I know; if trees, rocks, and stars were literate, I would recommend it to them, too. "Where do babies come from?" children ask their parents, and Cataclysm Baby has an alphabet of answers as beautiful and mysterious as that ancient question, while always posing its haunting corollary: 'Where do they go?' --Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!
"You can read Matt Bell's apocalyptic abecedarium as a grotesque allegory of the devastations of parenthood, or as a grim realist extrapolation evoked by our crumbling world order. But these lovely, harrowing pieces do not float off into the Ideasphere; they remain tethered to the dusty, arid earth by their palpable nouns: baby, hair, teeth, womb, seed, porridge, hut, crib, bone, mouth, hatchet, shovel, flesh. Like The Red Cavalry Stories or The Age of Wire and String, Cataclysm Baby is both surreal and vividly concrete, as much a Feeling Experiment as a Thought Experiment. The trope of end time is always about revelation, and what is revealed here, among other things, is Bell's brutal compassion." --Chris Bachelder, author of Abbott Awaits
"The baby born as fur ball, the one who chews up its sibling in the womb, the amputated limbs, the child sacrifices, the girl untethered into the sky, the skewed biblical cadences and the mythic tropes, the continuous horror begot by parenthood and authority--Matt Bell's collection of condensed narraticules, Cataclysm Baby, is Avant-Gothic at its most remarkable, unsettling, potent." --Lance Olsen, author of Calendar of Regrets
"Here is the alphabet of the pulsing apocalypse that is fatherhood, a book in love with what words, like parents, create: beauty, terror, awe." --Lucy Corin, author of The Entire Predicament
"You can read Matt Bell's apocalyptic abecedarium as a grotesque allegory of the devastations of parenthood, or as a grim realist extrapolation evoked by our crumbling world order. But these lovely, harrowing pieces do not float off into the Ideasphere; they remain tethered to the dusty, arid earth by their palpable nouns: baby, hair, teeth, womb, seed, porridge, hut, crib, bone, mouth, hatchet, shovel, flesh. Like The Red Cavalry Stories or The Age of Wire and String, Cataclysm Baby is both surreal and vividly concrete, as much a Feeling Experiment as a Thought Experiment. The trope of end time is always about revelation, and what is revealed here, among other things, is Bell's brutal compassion." --Chris Bachelder, author of Abbott Awaits
"The baby born as fur ball, the one who chews up its sibling in the womb, the amputated limbs, the child sacrifices, the girl untethered into the sky, the skewed biblical cadences and the mythic tropes, the continuous horror begot by parenthood and authority--Matt Bell's collection of condensed narraticules, Cataclysm Baby, is Avant-Gothic at its most remarkable, unsettling, potent." --Lance Olsen, author of Calendar of Regrets
"Here is the alphabet of the pulsing apocalypse that is fatherhood, a book in love with what words, like parents, create: beauty, terror, awe." --Lucy Corin, author of The Entire Predicament
About the Author
Matt Bell is the author of How They Were Found (Keyhole Press, 2010), a collection of fiction, and Cataclysm Baby (Mud Luscious Press, 2012), a novella. His work has appeared in Conjunctions, Hayden's Ferry Review, Gulf Coast, and Willow Springs, and has been anthologized in Best American Mystery Stories and Best American Fantasy. He is the Senior Editor at Dzanc Books.
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More About the Author
Matt Bell is the author of Cataclysm Baby, a novella, and How They Were Found, a collection of fiction. His debut novel In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods will be published by Soho Press in June 2013. He is the Senior Editor at Dzanc Books, where he also edits the literary magazine The Collagist, and he teaches creative writing at Northern Michigan University.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
putting heart and meaning back into apocalypses bled dry after too many tellings.
May 21, 2012
Format:Paperback
Babies born wrong, a world in flames, drowning, drying up, and drifting away - these are the ways the world ends, with terminally hopeful fathers clutching the roles of the past as the future crumbles away. Cataclysm Baby spins these elements around, each chapter presenting a new vision of men trying to hold families together or blow them apart while exhausted wives die or go insane and children are born as insects, as ghosts, as part of a murderous, hostile new world.
Matt Bell's novel is an abecedarium of apocalypse; the title of every chapter is a trio of names, starting with the same letter - the names of the children who should carry humanity into the future and persevere in the face of a host of environmental disasters.
Read the rest of this review at [...]
Matt Bell's novel is an abecedarium of apocalypse; the title of every chapter is a trio of names, starting with the same letter - the names of the children who should carry humanity into the future and persevere in the face of a host of environmental disasters.
Read the rest of this review at [...]
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Peter Goutis
Format:Paperback
In Cataclysm Baby, Matt Bell shows you what it means to hurt. He shows what loss is. He teaches us desperation, sorrow, and hunger. He makes us accept these fates with no fight. We learn to fight, but only to survive.
These stories are short, most of them being 1-2 pages long. But they convey so much. And, as cliche as it is to say nowadays, Matt Bell really packs a lot into so few words.
The stories themselves take place in a dystopian future. I don't think they all take place in the same future or same setting, some of them seem to though. But, in each of these futures he gives us, something terribly wrong has happened. Every future that he comes up with is a horror. It's as if we are being punished for something, because living has become torture.
While the setting is this dystopian future, the theme is family. What are we doing to hold our family together? What is love driving us to do? Which member in the family is the most important? The most expendable? We need to make choices and none of them are good. But hopefully we can make the least bad choice.
A lot of these stories deal with babies - babies being born with too much fat, brittle bones, or totally covered with fur inside and out. This alone conveys so many ingrained emotions. As soon as a baby is mentioned you start feeling a certain way. And then you realize the baby isn't "right" and more emotions spring up. But it doesn't come off as a trick to play with your emotions. It's done just right. It's simply good writing.
Some of the stories are very strange. I would say he is toeing the line of bizarro. Maybe think of David Lynch? There is a story about a ceremony, not unlike a bar mitzvah, where when a child reaches a certain age they have a party. This party is about letting the child go - literally. The child fills with gas and floats away. But everything is done so believably that we don't question anything.
Is this book for everyone? No way. I think some people will be annoyed with the strangeness. Some people will be too upset with some of the images.
But the words, it's written so beautifully that it's begging to be read out loud. Some people will appreciate the imagery. Some people will appreciate the inventiveness of the scenarios. Some people will just dig the stories.
One complaint is that some of the stories are so short. I think he could take almost any story in the book and expand it into a full length novel, or at least a novella.
Either way, this book is one that I will be picking up from time to time to reread stories from. It takes a lot for a short story book to win me over. And this book did that plus some. I really enjoyed just about every aspect of it.
These stories are short, most of them being 1-2 pages long. But they convey so much. And, as cliche as it is to say nowadays, Matt Bell really packs a lot into so few words.
The stories themselves take place in a dystopian future. I don't think they all take place in the same future or same setting, some of them seem to though. But, in each of these futures he gives us, something terribly wrong has happened. Every future that he comes up with is a horror. It's as if we are being punished for something, because living has become torture.
While the setting is this dystopian future, the theme is family. What are we doing to hold our family together? What is love driving us to do? Which member in the family is the most important? The most expendable? We need to make choices and none of them are good. But hopefully we can make the least bad choice.
A lot of these stories deal with babies - babies being born with too much fat, brittle bones, or totally covered with fur inside and out. This alone conveys so many ingrained emotions. As soon as a baby is mentioned you start feeling a certain way. And then you realize the baby isn't "right" and more emotions spring up. But it doesn't come off as a trick to play with your emotions. It's done just right. It's simply good writing.
Some of the stories are very strange. I would say he is toeing the line of bizarro. Maybe think of David Lynch? There is a story about a ceremony, not unlike a bar mitzvah, where when a child reaches a certain age they have a party. This party is about letting the child go - literally. The child fills with gas and floats away. But everything is done so believably that we don't question anything.
Is this book for everyone? No way. I think some people will be annoyed with the strangeness. Some people will be too upset with some of the images.
But the words, it's written so beautifully that it's begging to be read out loud. Some people will appreciate the imagery. Some people will appreciate the inventiveness of the scenarios. Some people will just dig the stories.
One complaint is that some of the stories are so short. I think he could take almost any story in the book and expand it into a full length novel, or at least a novella.
Either way, this book is one that I will be picking up from time to time to reread stories from. It takes a lot for a short story book to win me over. And this book did that plus some. I really enjoyed just about every aspect of it.
Format:Paperback
I love everything Matt Bell writes, and it seems so obvious to me that this book is great, of course, so it seems like there is almost no reason to even say anything. It's a Matt Bell book. Read it. Really all anyone needs to know who is serious about literary fiction. I feel it would appeal to a wide range of tastes, but not to those who want to ignore the reality of our world. People call it the Apocalypse, but really, it's not about some religious strangeness of theoretical proportions. As surreal and impossible as it is, this book is as real as it gets.
Any parents considering having children today if they are aware must go through the stage of wondering if their children will be changed by the radiation levels, chemicals, electromagnetic pollution, even sonograms. What must their dreams be like each night, facing a future of raising monsters of distorted flesh, mind-gnomes, emotion-cloud with fingers where their toes should be. It's the state of our world, and what can we humans give back to make up for the burden we've caused the earth? Not enough. But we try. And Bell tries so hard he shines a genius-light on the grim devastation, highlighting the true horror in ways that make it beautiful. Almost beautiful enough to redeem us.
Any parents considering having children today if they are aware must go through the stage of wondering if their children will be changed by the radiation levels, chemicals, electromagnetic pollution, even sonograms. What must their dreams be like each night, facing a future of raising monsters of distorted flesh, mind-gnomes, emotion-cloud with fingers where their toes should be. It's the state of our world, and what can we humans give back to make up for the burden we've caused the earth? Not enough. But we try. And Bell tries so hard he shines a genius-light on the grim devastation, highlighting the true horror in ways that make it beautiful. Almost beautiful enough to redeem us.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Must Read for Lovers of Apocalyptic Fiction
What struck me most about Cataclysm Baby was its rhythm. I liken this book to one of Bell's other stories - Wolf Parts. Read more
Published 2 months ago by pfallerj
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great read
This book is very excellent. It is a very good read. I liked the y story a lot. Matt Bell is a good read!
Published 3 months ago by Jeremy Moss
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful and disturbing prose
I read about Cataclysm Baby on some year-end list and I must say I'm glad I did. This book definitely flew under the mainstream radar as it comes from a smaller publishing house,... Read more
Published 5 months ago by TheTurk
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cataclysm Baby - Matt Bell
Cataclysm Baby by Matt Bell
105 pages
5/5 stars
I don't really know where to begin with Cataclysm Baby. It's a quick read. I read it in three days. Read more
105 pages
5/5 stars
I don't really know where to begin with Cataclysm Baby. It's a quick read. I read it in three days. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Brianna Soloski
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must Read
A daring piece, with massive scope, yet a very quick read. Absolutely a rewarding experience for anyone with a little daring, with a desire fore something different. Read more
Published 10 months ago by William
5.0 out of 5 stars
The apocalypse comes in many forms.
THIS REVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT THE NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.
The apocalypse comes in many forms. Read more
The apocalypse comes in many forms. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Richard Thomas
