About Mathieu Cailler

Notable Awards

Reviews

“Catacombs of the Heart explores the loveliest and the most dreadful corners of existence. Its bittersweet accounts will break your heart, inspire you to see beauty in the mundane, and even, at times, make you laugh out loud. A gorgeous and powerful collection through and through.”
-Zara Lisbon, author of Fake Plastic Girl

“Cailler’s voice is unmistakable as he keenly observes his world, both inside and out. In poems that view the ordinary as extraordinary, Catacombs of the Heart is a collection that weaves together the emotions of our fragile and beautiful human coexistence.”
-Kali White VanBaale, author of The Monsters We Make and The Good Divide

“In this poetry collection, the catacombs of the title are a fascinating repository of the ‘things’ that comprise a life. These catacombs are a magical mystery tour swerving along Southern California’s freeways whereby the speaker encounters “a tango of perfume and Bay Rum cologne,” “kisses that taste like Friday,” or a homeless man explaining he imagines an assassination, while watching Bye-Bye Birdie, wouldn’t be so bad. To one crucial line, ‘maybe my brain isn’t a series of nerves and pink-gooey folds, but a map, a globe, ‘ a reader can only nod in recognition. These poems with their stunning, surprising details, are bright, shining, revelatory globes.”
-Sue William Silverman, author of If the Girl Never Learns

“A deeply moving portrayal of the complexities of the human heart. We all carry our own catacombs and Cailler’s sharp, but balanced command of language makes his poems accessible and relatable. They deliver the message that maybe none of us are as alone as we think.”
-Racquel Henry, Founder of Black Fox Literary Magazine

From Midwest Book Review: Clearly author Mathieu Cailler is a master of the short story format and Loss Angeles is a superbly crafted volume of truly memorable stories.

From Pacific Book Review: There is a Runyonesque quality to Loss Angeles. Each story exists individually within its own universe, yet there’s an overall impression that any of them could walk down the street and run into someone else. It’s all Los Angeles, after all, and it’s somehow more compelling to think that these things are happening all at once. If you haven’t read a short story since high school, start here. Cailler’s characters are relatable, his stories engaging, and you’ll continuously find yourself excited to see what happens in the next story. If you have read a short story since high school, read this one. You won’t regret it.

Whatever the subject, however common the predicaments are, Cailler helps us see and hear flesh-and-blood people with a calm, clear-eyed sureness so that we accept the usually tender, sometimes surprising, always satisfying endings as natural, even beautiful. —Easy Reader, Ron Arias

Cailler is an author who writes rich stories. —Serious Reading

Loss Angeles by Mathieu Cailler is an interesting collection of short stories… There are fifteen stories, which look at the private lives of a diverse cast of characters, with diverse challenges, violence, tragedy, grief, loss, conflict, compassion, empathy and love. REALITY, people; flaws and all! The author shows us all that life is complex, can be difficult, has hardships, challenges, and that we all need compassion and empathy. Very compelling. A treasure to be sure! —Book Addiction

Loss Angeles doesn’t focus on the bright lights of Tinseltown, but rather on the quiet day-to-day pain of marginalized people paralyzed by loss, poor choices, obsessions, and love. These subtle, beautifully wrought, and richly realized stories showcase Cailler as an intrepid fiction writer who is always compassionate to his characters and their moral quandaries.
—Laurie Alberts, author of The Price of Land in Shelby

Mathieu Cailler’s Loss Angeles is as vast and capacious in its human reckonings as the city it is named after, or re-named so movingly here in this extraordinary collection: in story after story Cailler demonstrates a remarkable range of characters who have lost almost everything only to find themselves somehow sustained by the most delicate, poignant, and tenuous of human threads. A remarkable—and remarkably moving—debut.
—Robert Vivian, author of The Tall Grass Trilogy and The Least Cricket of Evening

In Loss Angeles Mathieu Cailler looks upon humanity’s foibles with a tender mercy and conveys what he sees in sentences that sing with simplicity and clarity. Every story in the collection reveals a devastating beauty that, page after page, held me mesmerized. Cailler is indeed a writer to be admired and read for years to come.
—Sophfronia Scott, author of All I Need to Get By.

Mathieu Cailler’s clear-voiced humanity resounds throughout the 15 stories of this accomplished debut collection. His balanced powers of complex observation and accessibility are well suited to short fiction as he masterfully boils his stories down to small but revealing moments, exploring universal themes of loss, love, self-awareness, and so much more. The title emotion merely suggests but one of many evoked with the skill of a true world observer. Loss Angeles has everything to gain and Cailler is an author to watch.
—Kali VanBaale, author of The Space Between

A book’s title is often where you find its theme, and that can certainly be said for Loss Angeles. Los Angeles attracts the hopeful with the promise of an extraordinary life. Loss Angeles brings us the stories of ordinary life, united through the common thread of loss. I loved that I could pick this book up whenever the mood struck and inhabit the skin of another person and feel not so alone in my trials. Mathieu Cailler is a master at seeing the world through the eyes of another, each protagonist flesh and bone whether that be a teen girl, uncomfortable at a party, or a divorced dad, trying to keep his rank in his son’s life. As I flip through the book, I think, “Oh, that’s my favorite. No, that’s my favorite. No, no, that one.” The honest truth is that this is a superb, solid collection.. But if I had to pick, it would be “Graveyard Shift.” Because the world can change in a heartbeat. It can cave in on you. But it can also open up again.. Sometimes we need the reminder.
—Maggie Findlay