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Cataclysm Baby

by Matt Bell (Goodreads Author)

4.55 of 5 stars 4.55 · rating details · 145 ratings · 39 reviews

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, the...more

Paperback, 118 pages

Published April 15th 2012 by Mud Luscious Press

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Aug 04, 2012 Caleb Ross rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-velvet-podcast-books, ebooks, fiction-short-stories-single-author

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Jan 26, 2013 Craig rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

It is to Bell's credit that he can upend the reader's expected emotional response. For example, in "The Collectors," the reader is made to understand the emotional impact of hoarding, empathizing with characters whom we might have otherwise written off as disgusting, not worthy of mention, etc. Certainly in CATACLYSM BABY we should empathize with these parents, literally & figuratively torn apart by their Children of the Apocalypse. But Bell is a master of absence - what we don't know is how...more

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Jul 03, 2012 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really liked this collection of twenty-six short nightmare scenarios.... In all the stories, a woman has given birth, and I think it's always the father who narrates how things go to hell. Sometimes it's the kids who are savage, and sometimes it's the world they live in, but it's always bad. It might be fun to read this as the obsessive fever dreams of Bell when he contemplates fatherhood, but I don't know-- it could just as well be a challenge to scare yourself for fun.

Whatever it is, it's a...more I really liked this collection of twenty-six short nightmare scenarios.... In all the stories, a woman has given birth, and I think it's always the father who narrates how things go to hell. Sometimes it's the kids who are savage, and sometimes it's the world they live in, but it's always bad. It might be fun to read this as the obsessive fever dreams of Bell when he contemplates fatherhood, but I don't know-- it could just as well be a challenge to scare yourself for fun.

Whatever it is, it's a brisk, fun read. Some of the stories are very lyrical, some are more narrative, but in all of them, the language is lively and energized, the ideas are bold and gruesome, and when one's finished, there's another one just starting up.

Some elements here feel a little familiar-- there's one section that evoked, for me, last year's _We The Animals_ and other sections, like with the flood, evoke any number of flood stories. But that didn't really bother me, because it's not like the whole book developed a single idea that echoed someone else's work, and twenty-six doomsdays is hard to imagine, I'll bet.

If I had a concern, it really a minor one-- all chapters have three oddball names starting with the same letter. So you've got "Lakin, Lamia, Lakshmi" for a chapter about daughters. You get three names whether there are three kids or five or one. And there's nothing about the names that seems to influence the stories-- so if you were to re-title "Lakin" as "Hali, Halle, Hamako," I don't think it would change anything... This means it's hard to remember which story is which based on title, at least for me-- of course you'll have favorites in a book like this, but it's hard to re-find them.

Also, none of the names seem evocative of people I knew-- how much more troubling would "Prescott, Presley, Preston" be if it was "Peter, Paul, Patrick," and evoked figures from my actual childhood. To me, it's kind of a squandered opportunity to really give the reader chills. But there's enough to like in this book that leaving a some ideas on the table is perfectly okay. (less)

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May 30, 2012 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars

Why do I think I have anything to add to the brilliance of this book? What praise could be heaped upon it that hasn't already been heaped?

There is, in this book, reason to celebrate the future of the independent publisher, for one. Mr. Tyler has given us such a beautifully made object; anyone who leaves it on a coffee table or keeps it visible on a bus stop bench will certainly fetch inquiry from others. It's just that arresting an object. I love the size, I love the design, I love the font. Mud...more Why do I think I have anything to add to the brilliance of this book? What praise could be heaped upon it that hasn't already been heaped?

There is, in this book, reason to celebrate the future of the independent publisher, for one. Mr. Tyler has given us such a beautifully made object; anyone who leaves it on a coffee table or keeps it visible on a bus stop bench will certainly fetch inquiry from others. It's just that arresting an object. I love the size, I love the design, I love the font. MudLuscious has been making such good books that this is, in some ways, no suprise, yet it seems that JA has upped the ante here.

What's more, Mr. Bell seems at the top of his game. I have been privileged to hear first hand that he considers himself not so much a writer of scenes but a writer of enhanced summary. And what summary this is. Much has been made of the Biblical cadences of his prose, but I would point too to his masterful employ of narrators who navigate a wavering line between reliable and unreliable. Ultimately, for me, it's no so much what they say, but the manner in which they say it, and how Bell seems to vanish more and more into these characters' voices: elegant, thundering, and wise, while beset by calamities that only Mr. Bell could devise.

Last, let me say that I am no fan of apocalyptic literature and wondered, going in, if I'd be wearied by the book's conceit (sundry end of the world scenarios from A to Z). I wasn't. And I attribute this to the reading that seems supported by the book's dedication, to Mr. Bell's parents, "who survived five cataclysms of their own." For while every father/narrator of these twenty-six segments reports the doom and despair of the end days, they also monitor the development of their offspring, and is it not possible that every parent, even the parent of children who are not sinister mimics (no wonder I liked that story) or lupine or possessed of brittle bones, indeed, suffers an apocalypse on a small scale? And as that world ends, another begins, which perhaps is what we readers should be considering with all cataclysms: that they offer an opportunity to conclude the business of one world and set up shop in another of limitless possibility?

Whatever, go and buy this book. It rocks.

(less)

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Jun 22, 2012 Peter Goutis rated it 5 of 5 stars

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...more 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.(less)

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Apr 02, 2012 Mel Bosworth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Failure is a major theme running though Bell’s dystopian landscape comprised of twenty-six connected pieces, though Cataclysm Baby—bearing some resemblance to a catalog of baby names—is nothing short of a creative success. In a collapsing, sputtering world, the adults are despicable and greedy, and their children—those who survive birth—are often feral or deformed, physically and sometimes supernaturally. In Abelard, Abraham, Absalom a son is born covered in hair, “inverse of our own nakedness,”...more Failure is a major theme running though Bell’s dystopian landscape comprised of twenty-six connected pieces, though Cataclysm Baby—bearing some resemblance to a catalog of baby names—is nothing short of a creative success. In a collapsing, sputtering world, the adults are despicable and greedy, and their children—those who survive birth—are often feral or deformed, physically and sometimes supernaturally. In Abelard, Abraham, Absalom a son is born covered in hair, “inverse of our own nakedness,” and in Yaretzi, Yasmina, Yatima a child is a “puff of womb-air” that seeps into the world as a disembodied, menacing “daughter-voice” that commands its broken, guilt-plagued father to build a tower into the sky. The children may be aberrations who are sometimes ritualistically sacrificed with the belief that the others might live on, but it’s the men—desperate for the continuance of their flawed bloodlines in a dying world—who are the true monsters in this work. The women in these pieces are often viewed as “receptacles” that need to be filled, if not willingly then by rape. Over and over they’re subjected to violations that usually lead to failed pregnancies. The world Bell has created is bleak and violent. Its overriding success is its ability to keep the reader rapt, not unlike a passerby on a highway drawn to an endless string of roadside carnage. Bell’s writing is surgical and smart, making great use of measured repetition to create an alluring cadence for its array of narrators. What’s curious then is Bell’s decision to maintain a first person narration throughout, given that the voice is largely unchanging despite being spoken by twenty-six different fathers. It’s a decision that allows the pieces as standalones to work exceptionally well, though when sewn together, some of the resonance of that early, unique cadence is lost as this cadence quickly becomes the standard. As an allegory that focuses on the fear of parenthood and how it can be painful and destructive but also necessary for the growth of an individual as well as that of a society, Cataclysm Baby is powerful, original, and wholly mesmerizing. (less)

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Jul 18, 2012 Joe Sacksteder rated it 4 of 5 stars

I quite liked this book. Others have compared it to "Age of Wire and String," and I think the comparison is a good one. Cataclysm Baby continues a new (?) trend of dealing with the potential death of our planet and species by crafting a gruesome topography and society upon the ruins of the old. The objects and urges are familiar and everyday, but the rules and the physics have changed. I especially liked the V, Q, P, and N section. Matt knows how to end a piece with a thud - a trait I greatly ad...more

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Mar 09, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

I literally loved this book. It's impressive on a sentence-language level, paragraph-flow level, larger-scope concept level, and more. It's dark, yet tender at the same time. Facets of parenthood in an apocalyptic setting is definitely interesting in just the imagination, but it seems to be to also be a reflection (though projected through a warping lens) of trying to be a parent in a world constantly changing. I mean these parents are torn between how they were taught to view their parental rol...more

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May 21, 2012 Ampersand Books rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 abe

...more

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Feb 21, 2013 Mark Dickson rated it 4 of 5 stars

This would have been five stars if not for its occasionally clumsy literariness (I'm referring specifically here to Bell's almost pathological overuse of compound hyphenated words).

These stories are stark, sad, discouraging, and at times hopeful. In its short 100ish pages, it points to--rather than describes--an alphabet of moral, emotional, intellectual, and physical failures in some nebulous post-apocalypse. Its implied questions--What happened? Why did it happen? Did we/they deserve this?--ar...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Jeffrey Pfaller rated it 4 of 5 stars

What struck me most about Cataclysm Baby was its rhythm. I liken this book to one of Bell's other stories - Wolf Parts. Individually, each of these 26 vignettes of failed parental and domestic relationships is a gut-wrenching look at how the most basic of all units - the family unit - breaks apart in the face of the apocalypse. But one after another, weight of each story continues to batter you as a reader. Until, like the ocean beating on a glacier or the wind cutting at stone, it simply become...more

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Mar 29, 2013 T.C. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, literary-fiction, sci-fi, favorites

This review originally appeared in THE SPECULATIVE EDGE, Issue 4, November 2012.

See the future and its hairy, near-human babies. Fetuses like moths, birthed into worlds of hail and blood. Sibling-devouring toddlers. Blind daughters chopping off their father’s appendages in punishment for daddy’s infidelity. Pup boys. Children fleeing like monkeys into the tree canopy. Push the children off the cliffs. Spare them the misery of this world.

Billed as a novel(la), Matt Bell’s Cataclysm Baby is a fal...more

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Jun 08, 2012 Brianna Soloski rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-in-2012, reviewed-for-blog

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. I wish I could read all books that quickly.

Cataclysm Baby is divided into 26 short chapters, one for each letter of the alphabet and each titled with people’s names. Told from the perspective of the fathers, each chapter tells the story of oddly made children – children born with fur, children with bones that disintegrate as soon as they’re touched.

This...more

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Nov 26, 2012 Ryan Bradford rated it 5 of 5 stars

he children in Matt Bell’s Cataclysm Baby are disgusting. They are disfigured, hairy, segmented. They break apart when they exit the womb. They are the harbingers of the apocalypse. The 26 stories in here culminate in a bleak, frightening vision of what happens when the parental structure falls apart.

But for as how post-apocalyptic Bell’s vision is, Cataclysm Baby is about the past. The 26 fathers are to blame, this bleak world they inhabit is the one they’ve built–they are cowards, they abandon...more he children in Matt Bell’s Cataclysm Baby are disgusting. They are disfigured, hairy, segmented. They break apart when they exit the womb. They are the harbingers of the apocalypse. The 26 stories in here culminate in a bleak, frightening vision of what happens when the parental structure falls apart.

But for as how post-apocalyptic Bell’s vision is, Cataclysm Baby is about the past. The 26 fathers are to blame, this bleak world they inhabit is the one they’ve built–they are cowards, they abandon. They murder: in “Xarles, Xavier, Xenos,” the father gives his son a 50-yard start before “I will shoot just once”. There is not a sympathetic character in this lot.

Ever since Ray Bradbury’s The Small Assassin scared the hell out of me, I’ve been a sucker for evil children in movies and literature, which is why I was originally attracted to Cataclysm Baby. I think parental and pregnancy-anxiety horror (and Bell does quite a bit of the latter here) is so effective because combines all these repulsion (body horror, slasher) /attraction (parenting instincts) elements. These contradictions are deeply unsettling, hard to comprehend and, I think, keep the genre taboo while we become desensitized to other horror.

But what I think sets Cataclysm Baby apart from most others I’ve seen/read, is that it indicts masculinity. Most evil children in movies and literature are products of Satan (The Omen), science (It’s Alive), ghosts/sexualization (Turn of the Screw), or general neglect (Ian McEwan’s early stuff) to give some examples. Cronenberg (The Brood) is the first example that comes to mind when talking about an active maternal influence on evil children, but for the most part, transient forces are to blame.

Bell’s work seems to be a reaction to this notion, and in fact, all notions of the father-role in evil children art: Because of a father’s transience/inaction, the child is awful and deformed. The fathers in Cataclysm Baby can’t blame Satan or science for the end of the world; their past (in)actions have given rise to 26 little apocalypses.

Anyway, great book. Read it.(less)

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Oct 02, 2012 edward rathke rated it 5 of 5 stars

Matt Bell's Cataclysm Baby is not an easy read. Not in terms of difficulty, but in terms of content. These are stories where the world has gone horribly wrong, and the grotesque are born over and over, in new terrifying ways.

Twenty six stories, twenty six worlds, twenty six births. I remembered reading a few of these around the web before this was published, but reading them all in a row is a whole different experience. And though these are surreal and grotesque, they do a great deal more than...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Richard Thomas rated it 5 of 5 stars

THIS REVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT THE NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.

The apocalypse comes in many forms. Oh sure, there is acid rain and there is drought, the crops dry up and the world moves on, but what happens when you’re alone with your wife or husband? Nature takes over, as it always does, and always will. And what becomes of the children? In Matt Bell’s haunting portrayal of twenty-six moments in the afterbirth of a world gone wrong, Cataclysm Baby (Mudluscious Press), we get to see how those day...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Vanessa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I couldn't wait to get my hands on this baby. Pun intended. And in the prepublication buzz, the title - in my mind's eye - became an address: Cataclysm, Baby. An apocalyptic novel(la) I apparently set in a seaside California surfing town. No, I hadn't read the blurb. I know Matt Bell. I like Matt Bell. I will buy his books without thinking - and I will continue to do so. Cataclysm (no comma) Baby is a dark delight. The perfect companion to today's rain. The storm clouds riding in like the apocal...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars

This novel shows a post-Apocalypse future where terrible things are happening to people and animals and babies. Deformities and food shortages and gruesome local rules. One section is like "The Lottery." Overall this is like The Road but with fancier language and worse things happening to everyone. It was a fast read and it hurts you in a good way.

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Dec 02, 2012 Paul rated it 5 of 5 stars

Post-apocalpytic/horror literary weirdness abounds with Matt Bell's 26 fathers and connected tales of their mutant/evolving children. It all works beautifully because he roots the weirdness in genuine emotion, and the dark and secret anxieties of parenthood. Matt is a one of a kind writer and I can't wait for his novel coming in 2013.

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Jan 25, 2013 Angie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorite-books, post-apocalyptic-dystopian, short-stories-novella

Wow.

You know when you read a book and you actually feel jealous of the talent the author possesses? Matt Bell has talent. His sometimes 1 page long stories pack a punch of imagery and character development. Each story leaves you wondering what happened to the world?

There are 26 short stories, in alphabetical order, from a father's point a view. In each story something has happened to the world and nothing is the same. And, whatever has happened to the world has effected the outcome of newly bor...more

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Jun 15, 2012 Tantra Bensko rated it 5 of 5 stars

As always, Bell shows his complete mastery and charismatic professionalism in this perfect book for our times. Anyone preparing to have a baby, looking through a book of names, in this era of countless toxins, has to wonder what possible monstrosities birth will present. Bell just wonders better.

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Mar 02, 2012 Kathryn Houghton rated it 5 of 5 stars

Picked this up at AWP, and read it in one night. Which isn't in itself such a huge accomplishment (the book is only 105 pages), but the writing pulls in such a way that it's difficult to put down. One of the blurbs for the book mentioned Bell's "brutal compassion," and I wasn't sure what that meant, but after reading it, I understand. And there isn't a better way to put it.

This isn't much of a review, but really there's only one thing you need to know: You should read this book.

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Jan 03, 2013 Matthew rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopia

Crass but apt: A fucked up collection of short stories about fatherhood outlined as a dystopian baby name book. Eight bucks for the kindle edition is a steep price for something just shy of 120 pages but it's worth it. Mr. Bell, something is wrong (and also very right) with you. Keep doing what you're doing, just keep your distance, sir.

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Mar 03, 2013 Ian rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really was blown away by this book. The brilliance of apocalypse stories is that you get to see real life through a new, enhanced prism. Those emotions, troubles, anxieties, they are all the same as anyone might feel under normal circumstances. But the colors are more vibrant, the terror and tone are pumped full of HGH. They resonate so much bigger with this kind of backdrop. Bell captures all of that superbly. The human condition is on display here, in all its warty, bloated ugliness. We are...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Stephanie marked it as to-read

Recommended to Stephanie by: The Rumpus! http://therumpus.net/2013/03/the-last-book-i-loved-cataclysm-baby/

Shelves: dystopian

This sounds really appealing to me--I loved CivilWarLand in Bad Decline so much. And would you look at that Goodreads rating!

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Jan 19, 2013 Brooks rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-2013, story-collections

There are 5-star moments in this one, but not enough. All the stories are grim, disturbing, and apocalyptic. The best of them, for me, was when they were a bit more metaphorical and a little less brutal.

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Apr 30, 2013 Fred Pelzer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories, small-press

I'm a sucker for poetic descriptions of the end of the world and you'll get that in spades with Cataclysm Baby. But that'll only carry you so far. In these stories, the real human dread of being a parent, of introducing some defenseless child into a world that will immediately start trying to kill it and who will in turn seem to try to kill you, is reflected in that fun-house mirror way of magical realism. Sure there's an element of Invisible Cities/Sum/Einstein's Dreams in the highly conceptual...more

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Dec 04, 2012 Christy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21st-century-american-lit, apocalypse, short-fiction, favorites

A disturbing & poetic post-apocalyptic vision. Highly recommended.

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May 14, 2012 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars

When you hear a wolf start reading.

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Jun 21, 2012 Carolyn DeCarlo rated it 4 of 5 stars

no women, no problem?

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About Matt Bell

Matt Bell is the author of How They Were Found, a collection of fiction from Keyhole Press. His fiction has been anthologized in Best American Mystery Stories 2010 and Best American Fantasy 2. He is also the editor of The Collagist and can be found online at www.mdbell.com.

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