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Calgary Herald

Pulling no punches: Calgary-born writer Scaachi Koul got divorced, reclaimed her narrative

Article content Scaachi Koul's initial concept for her second book of essays was completely different from how it turned out. Article content Article content It took her some time to figure this out, however. All the Calgary-born journalist, podcaster and pop-culture commentator knew at first was that the concept wasn't working. She signed a contract in 2018 for a follow-up to her 2017 book of personal essays, One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter. Her initial idea was to write a meditation on conflict. She even had a somewhat academic-sounding title: The Utility and Futility of Conflict. Article content 'I couldn't write a word of it,' says Koul, on the phone from her home in Brooklyn. 'First, I thought it was because of the pandemic, because all of my reporting got blown out because nobody could go anywhere. Then I was like 'maybe I just don't know how to write anymore.'' Article content Article content Then, three years ago, she got divorced. The dissolution of her marriage offered a framework for the new book, which would eventually be renamed Sucker Punch and feature a wedding ring imbedded into the finger hole of a set of brass knuckles as its cover art. Article content When the divorce was finalized, Koul had an epiphany about what was keeping her from writing. It wasn't the pandemic, and it wasn't that she had forgotten how. Article content 'Once my marriage fully fell apart and I could really look at it, I understood that was what was keeping me from doing anything. It clarified that I was fighting for things that I didn't actually care about and I didn't believe in and I didn't want,' she says. 'What a waste of my time. It has been liberating to give up. In a lot of ways, it's a book about giving up and failing and being righteous in failure.' Article content Article content So, in some ways Sucker Punch falls into a specific subset of literature, a divorce book that follows in the tradition of Leslie Jamison's Splinters, Sara Manguso's Liars and Nora Ephron's Heartburn. But unlike Manguso and Ephron's books, Sucker Punch is not a novel. Unlike Jamison's, it isn't fully a 'divorce memoir' either. Instead, the divorce provided a jumping-off point for a series of personal essays that tackle everything from body image to racism, family dynamics, sexual assault and her mother's cancer diagnosis. Article content Conflict is still a running theme. Throughout the book, Koul reflects on the combative nature she shares with her family and her one-time belief that her talent for conflict and fighting – whether it be with her family, friends, ex-husband or online trolls – was a valuable skillset. So 'giving up' may seem an alien concept for Koul to embrace.