Sucker punch Essays

Slate journalist Koul follows up her 2017 collection One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter with a sharp companion volume that reflects on body image, the dissolution of her marriage, and her mother's cancer. "Parvati Stands in Flames" recounts how in the months leading up to Koul's divorce, she picked arguments with her husband in an unsuccessful attempt to halt their slow drifting apart: "Fighting is a connection, a tether between two people who hate each other because they can't find love." Across several pieces, Koul explores her complex relationship with her mother, lamenting that though her mother's body image issues contributed to her own, she's still awed by her mother's ability to hold their family together even while undergoing cancer treatment. Pairing humor with vulnerability, Koul reflects on how the end of her marriage exacerbated her eating disorder, writing, "Here are some things I would rather do in public than write about my body and, specifically, my struggle for self-esteem: punch my cat in the face, eat a leech, have sex with an impolite wolf." The most powerful piece, "A Close Read," describes Koul's complicated feelings about reconnecting with a college friend who raped her to get his thoughts on an essay she had published about their relationship. Probing and strikingly candid, this is another winner from Koul. Agent: Ron Eckel, Cooke McDermid Literary. (Mar.)

Reflections about divorce and other difficulties by a millennial Canadian journalist/internet personality of Indian descent. "My ex is the hero of my first book because that's how it felt to me at the time. I felt rescued. It's bad enough to lie to yourself privately, but to sell it to a public who believes those stories, too? It feels like a scam. Strangers are sad to hear about my divorce because they thought my marriage stood for something bigger than just my own relationship." Unfortunately, the story of Koul's divorce from a white partner 13 years older than she, the main subject of this follow-up collection, also suffers from that limitation. Readers hoping to find themselves through reading about someone else's experiences may get a bit frustrated by this hall of mirrors (of mirrors of mirrors of mirrors…). Not that readers will never stumble upon a funny sentence or a relatable insight--but it's not enough. "Writing about yourself for the internet means pulling off little pieces of your body and letting them walk around without you. You have to let them go, and when you meet them again, you might not like them anymore." This is certainly the case with the story of her rape by a college classmate, a subject dissected at length in the first book, but now subject to radical and extended revision based on new developments. On other topics--body image, eating disorders, women's relationship to food--if there is anything new to say, and there really might not be, Koul hasn't found it. The attempt to hang all this on a framework of Hindu mythology is…a nice try. After reporting the mending of her relationship with her father after an estrangement, the decision to end the book with a section called Moksha (meaning enlightenment) that consists entirely of "A Comprehensive List of Everything My Dad Has Called Bergdorf Goodman"--Häagen-Dazs, The Googleheim, Goodman Goldstein, etc.--is a bit of a sucker punch for her dad and a cop-out for readers. The author's trademark self-lacerating humor does not quite save the day. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.