CATARACT

by Callum Angus

CATARACT begins in the desert, climaxes in fleeing wildfires, and ends in an OSHA conference call. From winery workers dying in the fields to endangered desert tortoises unable to outrun the flames, CATARACT is a venting of ecological rage, a communal cry in many voices against the few who keep us in this situation by using power to perpetuate inaction.

44 pages, Paperback

Published February 27, 2024

About the author

Callum Angus is a trans writer and editor living in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of A Natural History of Transition (Metonymy Press). His work has appeared in Orion, Catapult, LA Review of Books, Nat. Brut, The Common, and elsewhere. A former bookseller at Powell's and the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA, he holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He edits the literary journal smoke and mold.

Reviews

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart-shattering pessimism of the intellect; heart-mending optimism of the will. Angus chronicles in a series of small vignettes the politics of settler colonialism, capitalism, and ecocide as they impact the practice of art as well as the existence and mobility of people around the globe. The writing of Cataract — and all books — is so profoundly entangled with the backbreaking labor of workers exposed to the worst of our shared climate catastrophe, and Angus pays them their due while chronicling a personal journey through collapse.

[Luke Gorham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts strong, but feels ultimately incomplete. Requires a lot of good will to accept the organizing principle as a finished, cohesive idea. Some real high points, but ends up slight and unconvincing as a finished text.