SUCKER PUNCH

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.