Sucker Punch by Scaachi Koul
Scaachi Koul's first book was a collection of raw, perceptive, and hilarious essays reckoning with the issues of race, body image, love, friendship, and growing up the daughter of immigrants. When the time came to start writing her next book, Scaachi assumed she'd be updating her story with essays about her elaborate four-day wedding, settling down to domestic bliss, and continuing her never-ending arguments with her parents. Instead, the Covid pandemic hit, the world went into lockdown, Scaachi's marriage fell apart, she lost her job, and her mother was diagnosed with cancer.
Sucker Punch is about what happens when the life you thought you'd be living radically changes course, everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself has tilted on its axis, and you have to start forging a new path forward. Scaachi employs her signature humour and fierce intelligence to interrogate her previous belief that fighting is the most effective tool for progress. She examines the fights she's had — with her parents, her ex-husband, her friends, online strangers, and herself — all in an attempt to understand when a fight is worth having, and when it's better to walk away.
(From Knopf Canada)
Sucker Punch is available in March 2025.
Scaachi Koul is a writer from Calgary who currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her debut book, One Day We'll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter, was a New York Times Editors' Choice and a finalist for the Leacock Medal for Humor and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. She is currently a Senior Writer at Slate and co-hosts the Ambie Award-winning podcast Scamfluencers. Koul also co-hosted the Emmy-nominated Netflix series Follow This, and her work has been published in The New Yorker, This American Life, New York Magazine, and The Cut. She has also appeared in documentaries such as Quiet On Set and Pretty Baby.
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