The Big Hurt

"I picked up Erika Schickel's memoir and the world disappeared for the next two days. I was transported and consumed by Schickel's hypnotic unspooling of her troubled, sexed-up adolescence and the way the legacy of that time followed her like a black dog into midlife. Beautifully written, intensely relatable, and fueled by incendiary fury and love, The Big Hurt belongs on the shelf with a small number of memoirs that rearranged my world-view and maybe even a few of my cells. I loved this book."—Claire Dederer, author of Love and Trouble

"One of the top five books I've ever read, don't remember what the other four were. Wowee."—Sandra Tsing Loh, author of The Madwoman in the Volvo

"The Big Hurt fulfills the promise of which too many memoirs fall short: it takes the vagaries and vicissitudes of the human heart and elevates them to the level of social, even political, inquiry. Erika Schickel is not just an interrogator of her own psyche but an interpreter of the times--the current era as well as the decades that led us here."—Meghan Daum, author of The Problem with Everything

"Who doesn't love a fallen woman story? Erika Schickel's The Big Hurt delivers that in spades, but this fierce, elegant memoir does so much more. Schickel's unraveling of her past, will make you rethink every assumption you hold about the nexus between sexual desire and power. The Big Hurt is a most timely read."—Annabelle Gurwitch, author of the New York Times bestseller I See You Made an Effort and Wherever You Go, There They Are

"I loved The Big Hurt. It's the story of a bad girl who grew up to be a good woman--until she felt the old itch. In the middle of marriage and motherhood, Erika Schickel pulled the pin from a deadly grenade and blew it all up. The Big Hurt tells us what it's like to fall dangerously in love when the timing is wrong and the children are young, and when the man in question has immolation on his mind. It's a glimpse into secret places, a school for scandal and a funeral pyre. By turns ravishing and severe, it's a book I wanted to reread the moment I finished it."—Caitlin Flanagan, author of Girl Land

"Savagely funny, fiercely intelligent, ingeniously constructed, The Big Hurt gripped me from start to finish. This is that rare memoir that offers both the deep narrative pleasures of a great novel and the psychological excavation evident in the best personal histories, from Cheryl Strayed's Wild to Claire Dederer's Love and Trouble."—Joanna Rakoff, New York Times bestselling author of My Salinger Year

"[A] stirring...memoir...the probing examination of love and acceptance crackles with intensity. Schickel’s raw honesty makes this hard to put down."—Publishers Weekly

"Schickel is a fluid writer and can be funny, occasionally hilarious… her narrative timing is often spot-on….The scenes in which Schickel digs the deepest leave the longest-lasting impact....A flawed yet affecting portrait of a vicious, repetitive cycle."—Kirkus Reviews