Are we ever truly lost in the internet age?
The Observable Universe is a moving, genre-defying memoir of grief, memory, and meaning in a hyperconnected world.
When Heather McCalden was just seven years old, her father died of AIDS. Three years later, she lost her mother to the same virus. Growing up in 1990s Los Angeles—a city at the epicenter of the AIDS crisis—her personal loss was mirrored by widespread devastation.
Years later, as a writer and artist, McCalden begins researching the eerie parallels between the histories of AIDS and the internet. What does it mean to "go viral" in an age of both biological and virtual contagion? As she probes deeper, her investigation becomes increasingly personal. Her past begins to resurface, entwining with her research into a meditation on identity, memory, and legacy.
Through a kaleidoscopic mix of personal narrative, scientific inquiry, cultural references—from Raymond Chandler to late-night Netflix binges—McCalden stitches together fragments into a revelatory whole. In the process, she makes an unexpected discovery about her family and who her parents might have been.
Part memoir, part cultural history, and part philosophical inquiry, The Observable Universe is a radiant and prismatic reflection on loss—resonating powerfully in a post-pandemic, post-internet world.
Author
Heather McCalden is a multidisciplinary artist working with text, image and movement. She is a graduate of the Royal College of Art (2015) and has exhibited at Tanz Company Gervasi, Roulette Intermedium, Pierogi Gallery, National Sawdust, Zabludowicz Collection, Testbed 1, Flux Dubai and with Seattle Symphony Orchestra. In 2017 she attended the Emerging Writers Intensive at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity and returned in 2018 for their Summer Writers Residency. In January 2021, she participated in the Tin House Winter Workshop. The Observable Universe is her first book.
Physical Info: 4.92 x 0.86 x 7.76 inches | 424 Pages | French Paperback with Flaps