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The Big Hurt: A Memoir
A memoir of growing up in a fractured, literary family, being seduced by a teacher, kicked out of boarding school, and then doing it all over again in middle age.
In 1982, Erika Schickel was expelled from the highly prestigious Buxton boarding school in the Berkshires for sleeping with a teacher. She was that girl--the pretty, precocious one who got seduced, caught, and then whisked away in the night to avoid scandal. But Erika's provocative, searing, and often funny memoir, The Big Hurt, asks the question, What really happens to that girl in the aftermath?
Schickel came of age in the 1970s, the angsty progeny of two writers: Richard Schickel, the prominent film critic for Time magazine and Julia Whedon, a romantic, disappointed novelist. After her parents’ divorce in 1976, Erika was dumped in a bohemian boarding school and left to navigate the world more or less alone.
The Big Hurt tells two stories: a girl coming of age unsupervised, her seduction and expulsion from school which led to decades of self-loathing, an insatiable desire for an all-consuming love, and an overwhelming feeling of guilt. The second is how that girl, grown into middle age, reenacted that trauma with a notorious LA crime novelist, blowing up her marriage and casting herself into the second exile of her life.
The Big Hurt looks at a legacy of female pain handed down a maternal bloodline and the cost of epigenetic trauma. It shines a light on the Manhattan haute culture class and the atmosphere of neglect in the 1970s and ‘80s that made girls grow up too fast. It looks at the long shadow cast by great, monstrously self-absorbed literary lives and the ways in which women pin themselves like beautiful butterflies to the cork board of male ego.
The Big Hurt shows how one woman survived abuse and neglect, survived her own scandals to claim her creative voice and repair the legacy of "hurt" in her family tree so that her own daughters might grow up free of it.
In 1982, Erika Schickel was expelled from the highly prestigious Buxton boarding school in the Berkshires for sleeping with a teacher. She was that girl--the pretty, precocious one who got seduced, caught, and then whisked away in the night to avoid scandal. But Erika's provocative, searing, and often funny memoir, The Big Hurt, asks the question, What really happens to that girl in the aftermath?
Schickel came of age in the 1970s, the angsty progeny of two writers: Richard Schickel, the prominent film critic for Time magazine and Julia Whedon, a romantic, disappointed novelist. After her parents’ divorce in 1976, Erika was dumped in a bohemian boarding school and left to navigate the world more or less alone.
The Big Hurt tells two stories: a girl coming of age unsupervised, her seduction and expulsion from school which led to decades of self-loathing, an insatiable desire for an all-consuming love, and an overwhelming feeling of guilt. The second is how that girl, grown into middle age, reenacted that trauma with a notorious LA crime novelist, blowing up her marriage and casting herself into the second exile of her life.
The Big Hurt looks at a legacy of female pain handed down a maternal bloodline and the cost of epigenetic trauma. It shines a light on the Manhattan haute culture class and the atmosphere of neglect in the 1970s and ‘80s that made girls grow up too fast. It looks at the long shadow cast by great, monstrously self-absorbed literary lives and the ways in which women pin themselves like beautiful butterflies to the cork board of male ego.
The Big Hurt shows how one woman survived abuse and neglect, survived her own scandals to claim her creative voice and repair the legacy of "hurt" in her family tree so that her own daughters might grow up free of it.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published August 10, 2021
30 people are currently reading
1894 people want to read
About the author
Erika Schickel
5 books32 followersErika Schickel’s vivid, brainy yet vulnerable, often hilariously heartfelt writing deftly exposes the well-known, yet often overlooked taboo subjects of women’s lives. Whether she’s divulging the boredom of mothering small children, exploring the breakthroughs of psychedelics, or exposing predatory boarding school teachers, she does so with heart, honesty, and humor.
She is the author of The Big Hurt (Hachette Books, 2021) and You’re Not the Boss of Me: Adventures of a Modern Mom (Kensington Books, 2007). She has taught memoir and essay writing at UCLA and privately. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, LA City Beat, Salon, Ravishly, Tin House, Bust Magazine, and The LA Review of Books, among others.
She is also a trained actress, performing on-camera as well as off, she has also provided the voice of a variety of animated characters. In addition, she’s written and performed a number of one-woman shows and a radio play for the LA Theatre Works series: The Play’s the Thing. Erika lives outside of Los Angeles, CA.
She is the author of The Big Hurt (Hachette Books, 2021) and You’re Not the Boss of Me: Adventures of a Modern Mom (Kensington Books, 2007). She has taught memoir and essay writing at UCLA and privately. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, LA City Beat, Salon, Ravishly, Tin House, Bust Magazine, and The LA Review of Books, among others.
She is also a trained actress, performing on-camera as well as off, she has also provided the voice of a variety of animated characters. In addition, she’s written and performed a number of one-woman shows and a radio play for the LA Theatre Works series: The Play’s the Thing. Erika lives outside of Los Angeles, CA.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
August 25, 2021
A fantastic, propulsively told memoir. I made the mistake of starting this at 10 p.m. one night. Reading into the wee hours, I marveled at the deftness with which Schickel described states of mind quite specific to adults who have not yet mastered their wounds, which lie like areas of quicksand under a tranquil skim of water. I had to to be careful to finish my work for the day before I picked it up again, and put it down at a reasonable hour, because man, can she write, and man does she have a story to tell.
Schickel's memoir opens with the 40+ year old's affair with a legendarily strange, compelling older writer--a quite-famous mystery writer--succumbing to a blazing affair that seems fated, conditioned as it was by deeply hidden, unresolved, lifelong emotional wounds. She prepares us for her tale, by bringing us deep into the power of the attraction to this particular man in the midst of a long marriage to a nice guy whom she admits she was never passionate about. She had married him in the unconscious deal-with-the-devil that she would give up looking for a more passionate partner in favor of someone solid and reliable, around whom she could form a nurturing family life, and heal the damage inflicted by her glamorous but self-centered parents in the permissive 1970s. She thought on some level the marriage would heal the damage, but all it did was send it deep underground, where it lay in wait for the appearance of trouble, which caught her in the form of this unsettling, obsessive older writer.
As the almost-inevitable affair looms, Schickel switches back into her history, moving us back in time, to chart the emotional--and sexual--journey of a young girl, telling the truth about encounters of a type many women have had but would be embarrassed to admit. but also the early parental inattention and general moral vacuousness that devolves over time into a shocking blindness, selfishness and self-justification, the worst of the 'me generation' 1970s and its effect on the cultural classes--never have I seen a more keen eyed and damning portrait of that cultural moment. Schickel's mother was a. novelist, and her father one of the essential film critics of his time, and between them they had the protective instincts of fruit flies, all the empathy of a hunk of concrete.
Things go from bad to worse for the unsupervised, growing big-city sophisticated/unsophisticated girl as she comes into puberty. Her parents divorce and she becomes a bit of a football, neither parent able or willing to take responsibility or even think through what their eldest daughter might be experiencing or suffering in her own life. Though the mother finds the daughter's diary, discovering shocking realities, she withdraws her love rather than stepping up to see what she can do to help her daughter navigate the waters of the life they're living.
An event of neighborhood sex play, where the 5th grade Schickel is caught by the boy's mother, and labeled at school as a 'slut' begins her struggle with being labeled--and self-labeled--as the 'bad girl'. Thinking of herself as a bad girl, an unworthy girl, continues as other incidents the completely unparented girl begin to add up.
Drugs and alcohol don't help the unsupervised young Schickel define boundaries with her male classmates--and her search for approval and connection to someone, anyone, intensifies-- lead to further incidents which a girl with some sense of herself might have run from.
Her parents, unable to figure out what to do with their troubled, shoplifting, defiant daughter--at least anything that doesn't require a sacrifice on their part--send her to London to au pair at 13. It is incredible that anybody would trust a child like this with their baby, but it was the 1970s, and the lack of adult common sense in this story is eye-popping. When she is sent home for shoplifting- she is informed that she cannot for various reasons live with either parent. She will have to go to boarding school. Nobody is acknowledging what it must feel like for a child to be rejected/abandoned by both parents at such a critical time.
Fortunately, it seemed, the school was progressive and, as her father had hoped-- gave her the community and the kindness and care that neither one of her self-justifying parents is able or willing to provide. Until it didn't, following the disclosure that she had begun an affair with a music teacher a short six weeks before graduation.
One of the most brutal parts of the book was a letter from her father, the movie critic (professionally prone to long literate letters) sent to Schickel explaining why she couldn't spend the summer with him (the mother won't allow her to spend more than a few days with her because she finds her presence upsetting). He's got a new girlfriend he hopes will become permanent and the woman only has three months to spend with him and he doesn't want to blow it having Erika there. The gaslighting is astonishing--and I had to keep reminding myself, this is a memoir.. How the "kind and perfectly logical" father puts his needs ahead of his daughter's, and then drowns any insight into his BS with a profusion of verbiage professing care and concern. All the while showing what he really values. This to an unsupported fourteen year old.
The absence of parental weight, indeed, interference or attention by any adult other than the predatory teacher, renders the mistakes that proud, wild young Schickel was about to make almost inevitable. A very big hurt indeed.
Coming into the final furlongs, the book turns back to the marriage-exploding relationship with the weird older writer which becomes weirder by the moment as it works its way to its own denouement, No spoilers but we can anticipate that anything this hot between two very damaged people was going o melt down at some point, but still, the details of the meltdown grip you, and the perfect school situation also explodes. Then there's a completely unexpected twist in the aftermath of her expulsion that had my hair standing up. The ne plus ultra of the whole story.
The book makes a terrific landing. Of course the end would have to come around to the original wound, the family one, and it's an oddly healing journey, something I had not been expecting.
I admired Schickel's masterful storytelling, the intricate switching of the rails from the past story to the present one, timed for drama but also for our ability to absorb its difficulty moments, and every page offers up the readerly thrill of impressions precisely rendered:
"They had two dogs, Dutka and Yevka--tall, slender Russian wolfhounds that looked like hanks of silky yarn pressed between two panes of glass."
" Dad was more inconvenienced than he was heartbroken by the end of his marriage..."
Her keen eye and refusal to soften the edges. make this an unforgettable read. Emotionally dense, suspenseful, insightful, formidable.
Schickel's memoir opens with the 40+ year old's affair with a legendarily strange, compelling older writer--a quite-famous mystery writer--succumbing to a blazing affair that seems fated, conditioned as it was by deeply hidden, unresolved, lifelong emotional wounds. She prepares us for her tale, by bringing us deep into the power of the attraction to this particular man in the midst of a long marriage to a nice guy whom she admits she was never passionate about. She had married him in the unconscious deal-with-the-devil that she would give up looking for a more passionate partner in favor of someone solid and reliable, around whom she could form a nurturing family life, and heal the damage inflicted by her glamorous but self-centered parents in the permissive 1970s. She thought on some level the marriage would heal the damage, but all it did was send it deep underground, where it lay in wait for the appearance of trouble, which caught her in the form of this unsettling, obsessive older writer.
As the almost-inevitable affair looms, Schickel switches back into her history, moving us back in time, to chart the emotional--and sexual--journey of a young girl, telling the truth about encounters of a type many women have had but would be embarrassed to admit. but also the early parental inattention and general moral vacuousness that devolves over time into a shocking blindness, selfishness and self-justification, the worst of the 'me generation' 1970s and its effect on the cultural classes--never have I seen a more keen eyed and damning portrait of that cultural moment. Schickel's mother was a. novelist, and her father one of the essential film critics of his time, and between them they had the protective instincts of fruit flies, all the empathy of a hunk of concrete.
Things go from bad to worse for the unsupervised, growing big-city sophisticated/unsophisticated girl as she comes into puberty. Her parents divorce and she becomes a bit of a football, neither parent able or willing to take responsibility or even think through what their eldest daughter might be experiencing or suffering in her own life. Though the mother finds the daughter's diary, discovering shocking realities, she withdraws her love rather than stepping up to see what she can do to help her daughter navigate the waters of the life they're living.
An event of neighborhood sex play, where the 5th grade Schickel is caught by the boy's mother, and labeled at school as a 'slut' begins her struggle with being labeled--and self-labeled--as the 'bad girl'. Thinking of herself as a bad girl, an unworthy girl, continues as other incidents the completely unparented girl begin to add up.
Drugs and alcohol don't help the unsupervised young Schickel define boundaries with her male classmates--and her search for approval and connection to someone, anyone, intensifies-- lead to further incidents which a girl with some sense of herself might have run from.
Her parents, unable to figure out what to do with their troubled, shoplifting, defiant daughter--at least anything that doesn't require a sacrifice on their part--send her to London to au pair at 13. It is incredible that anybody would trust a child like this with their baby, but it was the 1970s, and the lack of adult common sense in this story is eye-popping. When she is sent home for shoplifting- she is informed that she cannot for various reasons live with either parent. She will have to go to boarding school. Nobody is acknowledging what it must feel like for a child to be rejected/abandoned by both parents at such a critical time.
Fortunately, it seemed, the school was progressive and, as her father had hoped-- gave her the community and the kindness and care that neither one of her self-justifying parents is able or willing to provide. Until it didn't, following the disclosure that she had begun an affair with a music teacher a short six weeks before graduation.
One of the most brutal parts of the book was a letter from her father, the movie critic (professionally prone to long literate letters) sent to Schickel explaining why she couldn't spend the summer with him (the mother won't allow her to spend more than a few days with her because she finds her presence upsetting). He's got a new girlfriend he hopes will become permanent and the woman only has three months to spend with him and he doesn't want to blow it having Erika there. The gaslighting is astonishing--and I had to keep reminding myself, this is a memoir.. How the "kind and perfectly logical" father puts his needs ahead of his daughter's, and then drowns any insight into his BS with a profusion of verbiage professing care and concern. All the while showing what he really values. This to an unsupported fourteen year old.
The absence of parental weight, indeed, interference or attention by any adult other than the predatory teacher, renders the mistakes that proud, wild young Schickel was about to make almost inevitable. A very big hurt indeed.
Coming into the final furlongs, the book turns back to the marriage-exploding relationship with the weird older writer which becomes weirder by the moment as it works its way to its own denouement, No spoilers but we can anticipate that anything this hot between two very damaged people was going o melt down at some point, but still, the details of the meltdown grip you, and the perfect school situation also explodes. Then there's a completely unexpected twist in the aftermath of her expulsion that had my hair standing up. The ne plus ultra of the whole story.
The book makes a terrific landing. Of course the end would have to come around to the original wound, the family one, and it's an oddly healing journey, something I had not been expecting.
I admired Schickel's masterful storytelling, the intricate switching of the rails from the past story to the present one, timed for drama but also for our ability to absorb its difficulty moments, and every page offers up the readerly thrill of impressions precisely rendered:
"They had two dogs, Dutka and Yevka--tall, slender Russian wolfhounds that looked like hanks of silky yarn pressed between two panes of glass."
" Dad was more inconvenienced than he was heartbroken by the end of his marriage..."
Her keen eye and refusal to soften the edges. make this an unforgettable read. Emotionally dense, suspenseful, insightful, formidable.
May 2, 2021
I am not sure what the point of this disjointed and incoherent book was supposed to be, but the result is an extremely unflattering self portrait of Ms. Schickel.
There seem to be two themes: abuse by her mother and abusive behavior by men in her life. But considering that she maligns and complains about everyone and everything in her life - both parents, female best friend, ex boyfriends and husband, social circles, professional circle - these themes are diluted and confused. Maybe it’s victimhood culture.
Ms. Schickel describes a lot of really bad behavior on her part - which she ascribes to being a “victim”. At times she seems aware that she is re-enacting prior bad acts (including her mom’s) and that her own behavior is hurting others. Other times she is baffled, or furious, when this is pointed out to her. Sometimes, it seems she doesn’t even recognize her hypocrisy.
Aside from criticism about the “message”, the book is just not well written. It jumps around chronologically and thematically to maintain interest, but ends up feeling randomly cobbled together with parts that don’t fit in. It doesn’t flow, and tries too hard to be clever. The stories and anecdotes are often peppered with gratuitous insults, lack context or explanation, or strain credulity.
Ultimately, though, this book doesn’t know what it wants to be: Mommy Dearest with a not famous mother? A tell-all about her brief affair with a famous writer? Is it a #metoo book? 300 pages of victimhood competition? To me, it sounded like the sad ramblings of an insecure, middle-aged privileged stoner narcissist who goes to therapy three times a week, to a shaman, and does drugs to “find herself”. I cannot relate.
There seem to be two themes: abuse by her mother and abusive behavior by men in her life. But considering that she maligns and complains about everyone and everything in her life - both parents, female best friend, ex boyfriends and husband, social circles, professional circle - these themes are diluted and confused. Maybe it’s victimhood culture.
Ms. Schickel describes a lot of really bad behavior on her part - which she ascribes to being a “victim”. At times she seems aware that she is re-enacting prior bad acts (including her mom’s) and that her own behavior is hurting others. Other times she is baffled, or furious, when this is pointed out to her. Sometimes, it seems she doesn’t even recognize her hypocrisy.
Aside from criticism about the “message”, the book is just not well written. It jumps around chronologically and thematically to maintain interest, but ends up feeling randomly cobbled together with parts that don’t fit in. It doesn’t flow, and tries too hard to be clever. The stories and anecdotes are often peppered with gratuitous insults, lack context or explanation, or strain credulity.
Ultimately, though, this book doesn’t know what it wants to be: Mommy Dearest with a not famous mother? A tell-all about her brief affair with a famous writer? Is it a #metoo book? 300 pages of victimhood competition? To me, it sounded like the sad ramblings of an insecure, middle-aged privileged stoner narcissist who goes to therapy three times a week, to a shaman, and does drugs to “find herself”. I cannot relate.
August 25, 2021
This is a hilarious, fast and funny read that nevertheless left me breathless time and again with its tragic honesty. I grew up in the same '70s as Erika Schickel and even though Portland, Oregon is about as far as you can get from the New York skyline, so much of her high school experience is familiar to me - the flannel shirts, guitars and round-robin backrubs, the Indian bedspreads, the endless planting and woodchopping, the arty, grade-less curriculum, the free-range parenting and yes, the rather fluid approach to teacher-student boundaries. Schickel writes with a wit, clarity and self-awareness that astonishes me. Her reckoning with her experience, and how it shaped her relationships going forward, is both insightful and brave. It made me question my own understanding of the world as we saw it then.
August 24, 2021
I bought this on impulse — the woman on the cover flipping the bird in a Patti Smith t shirt drew me in. Schickel is a superb writer. The narrative flips back and forth in time between two stages of her life (and two love affairs) thirty years apart, yet it is never confusing nor does it feel like artifice. That alone is a remarkable achievement.
Her second achievement is that this is a remarkably thoughtful and thought-provoking book. Though the memoir format is well-worn, this one always feels fresh and never (well, hardly ever) feels like it succumbs to a by-the-numbers “I’ve been through hell but things are great now.” Nothing is pat in this story, and I take that as evidence of her honesty. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.
The author is only three years older than myself, but it feels like she’s a generation older somehow. I suspect this is because she was essentially left on her own to navigate life at an earlier age than I was. She was forced to grow up fast, but she correctly notes the course of her earlier story took place entirely while she was still a child. That, of course, is the difference between the two affairs; the second took place in her 40s, and therefore she must bear responsibility for the fallout of that one. The reader does see how the two are related, though.
Her second achievement is that this is a remarkably thoughtful and thought-provoking book. Though the memoir format is well-worn, this one always feels fresh and never (well, hardly ever) feels like it succumbs to a by-the-numbers “I’ve been through hell but things are great now.” Nothing is pat in this story, and I take that as evidence of her honesty. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.
The author is only three years older than myself, but it feels like she’s a generation older somehow. I suspect this is because she was essentially left on her own to navigate life at an earlier age than I was. She was forced to grow up fast, but she correctly notes the course of her earlier story took place entirely while she was still a child. That, of course, is the difference between the two affairs; the second took place in her 40s, and therefore she must bear responsibility for the fallout of that one. The reader does see how the two are related, though.
July 5, 2022
The only major accomplishment of this book was that I finished it. The point of this book was lost on me. The tripes of this book were many. The romping through the affairs of Ericka's life was dumped ho-hum onto the pages as though it were some common occurrence. No circumspect language either; that would be prudish. Let's plunge headlong into using every foul description around the act of sex because that is pretty edgy.
The only reason I kept going is that I thought there would be some redemptive qualities to the story. There weren't any. In the end, she had the "realization" that she had been a victim of abuse by all these predatory people. You would have never surmised that while reading the first 99% of the book.
In the end, we have all been hurt, so join the club. The real question is, how did you overcome that? Maybe your story can help me. Perhaps I can see a side of myself that you have helped illuminate.
Unfortunately, this story fell far short of any of that.
The only reason I kept going is that I thought there would be some redemptive qualities to the story. There weren't any. In the end, she had the "realization" that she had been a victim of abuse by all these predatory people. You would have never surmised that while reading the first 99% of the book.
In the end, we have all been hurt, so join the club. The real question is, how did you overcome that? Maybe your story can help me. Perhaps I can see a side of myself that you have helped illuminate.
Unfortunately, this story fell far short of any of that.
April 23, 2021
Thank you to Erika Schickel and Hachette Books for a copy of The Big Hurt: A Memoir. I don't give away spoilers in my reviews.
I sometimes hesitate to read any type of memoir because I always feel an obligation not to hurt an author's feelings or to cause them any pain -especially if their life has had significant pain already.
I started The Big Hurt yesterday around 5pm and stayed up until 1:22am to finish it. I could not put her book down. Even when it fell on my face a few times as I started to fall asleep.
Erika is a real person so I can't say I loved the character like I usually can in a book. So I will say I relate so much to her. I related to her struggles with men, mostly.
I think every woman who has had a history of dating "parasitic men" should read this book. It's not an advice book. It's about one woman who had that history, made the connections throughout her life and fought through them. That's not easily done - and is so admirable.
Erika's book gives me hope, helped me understand mother-daughter connections and made me realize I was not the only woman who struggled with men.
I wish her nothing but happiness and success in her life. She's certainly due it.
I sometimes hesitate to read any type of memoir because I always feel an obligation not to hurt an author's feelings or to cause them any pain -especially if their life has had significant pain already.
I started The Big Hurt yesterday around 5pm and stayed up until 1:22am to finish it. I could not put her book down. Even when it fell on my face a few times as I started to fall asleep.
Erika is a real person so I can't say I loved the character like I usually can in a book. So I will say I relate so much to her. I related to her struggles with men, mostly.
I think every woman who has had a history of dating "parasitic men" should read this book. It's not an advice book. It's about one woman who had that history, made the connections throughout her life and fought through them. That's not easily done - and is so admirable.
Erika's book gives me hope, helped me understand mother-daughter connections and made me realize I was not the only woman who struggled with men.
I wish her nothing but happiness and success in her life. She's certainly due it.
January 2, 2022
In 1982, Erika Schickel was expelled from her East Coast prep school for sleeping with a teacher. This book tells two coming-of-age stories: the one of a lost girl in a predatory world who was whisked away in the middle of the night to avoid scandal, and the other of that girl grown up, who ends up recreating her past with a notorious LA crime novelist, which ends in divorce and casts her into the second exile of her life. The author shares an understanding of how she changed and what she learned about her family when she began to reflect on her past.
The way that the author wrote about how her young affair began and the transition from it starting as a simple thought to turning into something that was acted upon was so well-written. The use of metaphors made the writing powerful. One quote stood out when she said, "The more I rummaged through the memories I had put away three decades ago, the sadder it became. This wasn't the story of a rebellious bad girl. This was the story of an abandoned child. Worse, the climax, my expulsion from boarding school, which I had imagined writing as a kind of sexscapade gone awry, was neither fun nor romantic. I was forty-four years old. I had two daughters nearing the age I had been when my family got rid of me. The idea of abandoning either of them in any way was revulsive and unimaginable to me. What if every decision I had made since 1982 was built on the faulty premise that I was a bad girl? What if all along I had just been a very hurt girl trying to survive in a predatory world? My story wasn't comedy. It was tragedy. The minute I understood that I stopped writing."
To listen to my interview with the author, go you my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/eri...
The way that the author wrote about how her young affair began and the transition from it starting as a simple thought to turning into something that was acted upon was so well-written. The use of metaphors made the writing powerful. One quote stood out when she said, "The more I rummaged through the memories I had put away three decades ago, the sadder it became. This wasn't the story of a rebellious bad girl. This was the story of an abandoned child. Worse, the climax, my expulsion from boarding school, which I had imagined writing as a kind of sexscapade gone awry, was neither fun nor romantic. I was forty-four years old. I had two daughters nearing the age I had been when my family got rid of me. The idea of abandoning either of them in any way was revulsive and unimaginable to me. What if every decision I had made since 1982 was built on the faulty premise that I was a bad girl? What if all along I had just been a very hurt girl trying to survive in a predatory world? My story wasn't comedy. It was tragedy. The minute I understood that I stopped writing."
To listen to my interview with the author, go you my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/eri...
August 18, 2021
I had started reading this book about a month and a half ago and just couldn't get into it. I finished all the books in my house so I picked this up again and was glad I did. It's about a woman looking back on her life and her relationships with men- her Dad, her teacher, her husband, her lover (coined Sam Spade but perhaps in real life James Ellroy?). It's about what women give up (themselves) when they are in relationships. It's about secrets that are kept. I recommend this book. Give it a try!
March 24, 2021
Though it wasn’t enjoyable for me I can appreciate it as a memoir. Others will certainly enjoy Erika Schickel’s jot down memory lane.
August 19, 2021
As a woman born on the cusp of being a very young baby boomer or a very old Gen Xer, I found The Big Hurt to be hugely relatable. I listened to the audiobook, which is read by the author. Besides being a brilliant writer, Erika Schickel is also a trained performer, so the reading was better than most. But now, because I loved the audiobook so much, I need to buy the actual book so I can see the words on the page and savor the author’s command of the English language. It is so well-written and beautifully organized to cover several topics: abandonment, feminism, generational trauma, growing up in the predatory 70s and 80s, playing muse to brilliant men who appear sensitive at first, but once the newness of the relationship wears off, not so much.
In some ways, Schickel’s childhood is enviable. Both her parents are accomplished writers, both are talented and intellectual, there are plenty of books around the house, and she’s growing up in NYC surrounded by tons of culture. What could possibly go wrong? Well, the 1970s (what I like to call the decade of the feral child), and parents born in the Silent Generation. They are so stereotypical of that era, which is to say there is very little supervision. Dad is a smoker, drinker, and womanizer, and Mom is, well, a little more complicated, but isn’t that usually the case for ambitious women of that era, expected to marry young and have children instead of building a career of their own? So yes, the mother-daughter relationship is somewhat strained.
Schickel’s main romantic pursuers were her high school music teacher and later in life, a big-time crime writer. (I see you, James Ellroy, I mean “Sam Spade.”) These men used their position and power to seduce Schickel, made her feel loved, then dumped her.
What I loved most about this book is its honesty. Though a reliable narrator, Schickel herself is flawed and doesn’t cover it up. Instead, she shines a light on her shortcomings and tries to make sense of it all by tracing the patterns in her life. I also appreciated that she looked back on her life through the lens of the #MeToo movement. Manipulative men were so predominant back in those years that we all thought it was normal behavior. Thank the goddesses, women are pushing back on this bad behavior and we are now starting to read books like The Big Hurt. I highly recommend.
In some ways, Schickel’s childhood is enviable. Both her parents are accomplished writers, both are talented and intellectual, there are plenty of books around the house, and she’s growing up in NYC surrounded by tons of culture. What could possibly go wrong? Well, the 1970s (what I like to call the decade of the feral child), and parents born in the Silent Generation. They are so stereotypical of that era, which is to say there is very little supervision. Dad is a smoker, drinker, and womanizer, and Mom is, well, a little more complicated, but isn’t that usually the case for ambitious women of that era, expected to marry young and have children instead of building a career of their own? So yes, the mother-daughter relationship is somewhat strained.
Schickel’s main romantic pursuers were her high school music teacher and later in life, a big-time crime writer. (I see you, James Ellroy, I mean “Sam Spade.”) These men used their position and power to seduce Schickel, made her feel loved, then dumped her.
What I loved most about this book is its honesty. Though a reliable narrator, Schickel herself is flawed and doesn’t cover it up. Instead, she shines a light on her shortcomings and tries to make sense of it all by tracing the patterns in her life. I also appreciated that she looked back on her life through the lens of the #MeToo movement. Manipulative men were so predominant back in those years that we all thought it was normal behavior. Thank the goddesses, women are pushing back on this bad behavior and we are now starting to read books like The Big Hurt. I highly recommend.
November 10, 2021
A book halfway disguised as a memoir of youthfulness and the misadventures of growing up in the elite society, but slowly reveals itself as a reckoning in the form of an internal struggle in reevaluating the past.
The settings and style and history all feel displaced from any relatability until you and the author shed the lens of nostalgia and let memories be reconsidered.
The settings and style and history all feel displaced from any relatability until you and the author shed the lens of nostalgia and let memories be reconsidered.
September 5, 2022
This woman can write, and wow, when I began the book I was riveted and impressed. So many amazing turn-of-phrases, and a compelling, interesting story of love/lust addiction.
Then she began the long trek back through her entire upbringing to give us a picture of how she got to be in the present predicaments (where the book began). I was interested for a while and then suddenly realized I was not. I did not care about this woman, and I was thus not up for reading every detail about how her parents, their parents, and her upbringing, traumas, whatevers, shaped her.
So by the time the book veered back to the present...well, it was more interesting again, but by then I had a sour taste in my mouth in realizing I didn't care much about her, nor her story.
I also was rather shocked when she described Her blame stuck out like a sore thumb and seemed very inappropriate. This was a point where she might have written words to heal that precious alliance, but instead she burned the bridge in resentment.
Also her great insights about her experience and that of other young women seem mostly self-involved and not anything new.
There was one point where she had a few wise potent words about young how women can be viewed, abused, and regarded in school and other settings. I appreciated that brief burst of engaging insight.
And I still think she has great writing chops--the form is great. Just not the content so much.
Then she began the long trek back through her entire upbringing to give us a picture of how she got to be in the present predicaments (where the book began). I was interested for a while and then suddenly realized I was not. I did not care about this woman, and I was thus not up for reading every detail about how her parents, their parents, and her upbringing, traumas, whatevers, shaped her.
So by the time the book veered back to the present...well, it was more interesting again, but by then I had a sour taste in my mouth in realizing I didn't care much about her, nor her story.
I also was rather shocked when she described Her blame stuck out like a sore thumb and seemed very inappropriate. This was a point where she might have written words to heal that precious alliance, but instead she burned the bridge in resentment.
Also her great insights about her experience and that of other young women seem mostly self-involved and not anything new.
There was one point where she had a few wise potent words about young how women can be viewed, abused, and regarded in school and other settings. I appreciated that brief burst of engaging insight.
And I still think she has great writing chops--the form is great. Just not the content so much.
September 10, 2021
For some reason, the ending of this book sold me on the entire project. Students having intimate affairs with their high school teachers and college professors is nothing new. What’s changed is seeing the student in that scenario as a victim and the teacher’s behavior as predatory. And yet, this is still happening.
Erika Schickel presents a compelling story of patterns of mischief that she traces back to neglectful parents and a world that under valued a girls education. At times a little slow, I found this memoir compelling nonetheless, enough to carry me to the end where it all made sense.
Erika Schickel presents a compelling story of patterns of mischief that she traces back to neglectful parents and a world that under valued a girls education. At times a little slow, I found this memoir compelling nonetheless, enough to carry me to the end where it all made sense.
December 30, 2021
⭐️⭐️ What started as a self-indulgent, “look-at-me being a bad-ass teenager (aren’t I cool?)” ended up being an expose on sexual abuse in East Coast boarding schools and a reluctant reconciliation with her absent parents as they died. Since I don’t know who she is, I could not find her stories anything but self-serving. INCREDIBLY well-written… don’t get me wrong. But the 40-year-old dialogue that’s used in describing a love affair with a teacher is disingenuous. I’m glad I bought this on sale at Audible.
July 1, 2021
I had to stop reading at p. 32 when she said she felt “rewarded” by yelling at her little kids and making them cry. I don’t know what kind of person would think this, much less put it in a book. I’m giving it 2 stars because I didn’t finish the book and don’t think it would be fair to give it one on that basis.
August 3, 2021
This seemed right up my alley, but it was not.
January 21, 2022
I wanted to read this memoir because I have a semi close social media friendship with her and her partner.
This book made me cry (not easy), more because of the generosity of her heart and her capacity to forgive.
It toggles back and forth between Ms. Schickel’s youth into adult and a later chapter in her life when she was the lover and muse for Elmore Leonard, referred to as Sam Spade.
In her early years she and I lived just a few blocks away from each other but in no way did our paths cross. She was the daughter of an illustrious writer and a mother who was also a writer. I am the daughter of an insurance salesman and a sort of stay at home mom activist alcoholic. Still, our early neighborhood was the same and it was fun to read about my hood filled with folks I wish I could have known and places that were off limits to me because of money.
It’s a sad story, especially her time at Buxton boarding school where she was prey to a predatory teacher. No one was there to help her, advise her, love her when she needed all those things, except her friend CJ who from experience knew what was happening and tried to warn her.
Ms. Schickel is so brave to out these people, and to love and forgive, or st the least understand many of them. I think there are things about Buxton she loved - I am sure of it. But they owe her big time. A huge fat public apology in bold print.
Buxton lives on with new staff, new teachers, new students. Such is real life.
But Erika Schickel lives on herself, and that she does means there is some hope for everyone.
This book made me cry (not easy), more because of the generosity of her heart and her capacity to forgive.
It toggles back and forth between Ms. Schickel’s youth into adult and a later chapter in her life when she was the lover and muse for Elmore Leonard, referred to as Sam Spade.
In her early years she and I lived just a few blocks away from each other but in no way did our paths cross. She was the daughter of an illustrious writer and a mother who was also a writer. I am the daughter of an insurance salesman and a sort of stay at home mom activist alcoholic. Still, our early neighborhood was the same and it was fun to read about my hood filled with folks I wish I could have known and places that were off limits to me because of money.
It’s a sad story, especially her time at Buxton boarding school where she was prey to a predatory teacher. No one was there to help her, advise her, love her when she needed all those things, except her friend CJ who from experience knew what was happening and tried to warn her.
Ms. Schickel is so brave to out these people, and to love and forgive, or st the least understand many of them. I think there are things about Buxton she loved - I am sure of it. But they owe her big time. A huge fat public apology in bold print.
Buxton lives on with new staff, new teachers, new students. Such is real life.
But Erika Schickel lives on herself, and that she does means there is some hope for everyone.
February 6, 2022
So much about this shining, harrowing tale to admire and shrink from. Erika Schickel lets us see everything.
And if certain readers have a problem with that, she has a message for you, and it’s on the front cover.
The message for everyone else is built into the book title.
What I recognized as a reader?
That careless parenting opens portals to all kinds of addiction. That a surfeit of predators waits on the other side. That empathy can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
What I noticed as a writer?
Her raw, magnetic, unvarnished voice, as if she’s confiding in a Lidia Yuknavitch who would never judge. Her suspenseful weaving of past and present. Her ability to offset depths with heights. Her luminous language.
I kept my seat through the first chapter and by the end stepped out of the ride sad, angry, euphoric, hopeful, wiser. This story shifted my world view for worse and by far for better.
And if certain readers have a problem with that, she has a message for you, and it’s on the front cover.
The message for everyone else is built into the book title.
What I recognized as a reader?
That careless parenting opens portals to all kinds of addiction. That a surfeit of predators waits on the other side. That empathy can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
What I noticed as a writer?
Her raw, magnetic, unvarnished voice, as if she’s confiding in a Lidia Yuknavitch who would never judge. Her suspenseful weaving of past and present. Her ability to offset depths with heights. Her luminous language.
I kept my seat through the first chapter and by the end stepped out of the ride sad, angry, euphoric, hopeful, wiser. This story shifted my world view for worse and by far for better.
February 21, 2023
This is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. And I read a LOT of memoir. It kind of kills me that this book has not won all the awards and isn’t super famous and in every woman’s hands. Flawlessly structured, fearlessly and beautifully written. Just a staggering book. I’m mad I finished it and have to try to find a next book that measures up.
May 14, 2021
I received a copy of this book from Goodreads. Opinions are my own.
I don’t know how I feel about The Big Hurt. It would be easy to dismiss the book because I struggled to read it. It would be easy to say that it wasn’t very good because the narrative was all over the place. It would have been easy to decide that it wasn’t worth my time to read it because I didn’t like it. I have a huge respect for writers who choose to share their most vulnerable stories, but honestly, I just didn’t like this for all the reasons I listed above.
I don’t know how I feel about The Big Hurt. It would be easy to dismiss the book because I struggled to read it. It would be easy to say that it wasn’t very good because the narrative was all over the place. It would have been easy to decide that it wasn’t worth my time to read it because I didn’t like it. I have a huge respect for writers who choose to share their most vulnerable stories, but honestly, I just didn’t like this for all the reasons I listed above.
October 30, 2021
Reading this book definitely hurt as there were so many moments that reminded me of my own childhood- of having to act like an adult in a world where I had no control. I was so struck by the ways women were groomed to sparkle on demand for men only to be later dismissed so that the men could be "free to work, publish, and pursue their next great passion." And the predator nature of men- teachers, professors, writers, was both shocking and yet so obvious at the same time.
October 24, 2021
This book is fierce, funny, smart, tender, sad and ultimately, uplifting and redemptive. I loved it.
December 31, 2021
I'm grateful I stayed with this book,because there was redemption and self-awareness...but I was so uncomfortable with the multi-generational romp of young women having affairs with teachers, and then Schickel abandoning her family to take up with a famous author, only identified as "Sam Spade." I cringed thru much of this...
But the self-reflection and awareness at the end sold me. I just wished that came earlier...in the book and in her life.
But the self-reflection and awareness at the end sold me. I just wished that came earlier...in the book and in her life.
October 14, 2022
It takes a long time to pack the powerful punch as when Alison Bechdel asked her mother the most important lesson she learned from her mother and she quickly replied: "boys matter more than girls" after 300 pages, but it's worth the wait. Schickel puts it all out there like Glennon Doyle and in so doing aptly narrates her confusion and self-blame and her powerful sense of abandonment and thereby makes the damaged older men who preyed on her, with parental and school complicities, seem even more blameworthy. Another poster child for institutional betrayal. I wish the scholars advocating for the transformational effect on fathers or having daughters crap could watch the cop in Audrey and Daisy or read the account of her father's admiration for J.D. Salinger's preying on bright undergraduates. Lots of connections with Sarah Polley and her star fucker Dad and absent Mom. Her tracing of intergenerational patterns reminds me both of the powerful play What the Constitution Means to Me, as well as Jessica Stern's stunning rape novel Denial. It's really the opposite of My Dark Vanessa in that it zooms out to see a wider landscape rather than focusing in on the one teacher. At first, I was a little annoyed waiting for information about the teacher but upon reflection, I like how little real estate she gave him. She skillfully describes the MO of the groomer in the great love and rescue narratives that ultimately erases her individuality and silence her creativity. Her generosity toward her parents is moving, as is her recognition of a profound failure of outrage for herself. And I loved the sections about her writers block, quite hilarious and real. Best insight when talking about her friend who signed an NDA on. p. 269 "The only viable currency in the world of trauma is being able to tell your story. The teacher who abused him was still teaching and DJ, was still broken." It's making me rethink my conviction that all this bean counting through climate surveys and speaking out is not moving us toward prevention. Given all we know about the damage of Telling--see the great new podcast Because of Anita--as Tarana Burke's memoir shows it is a significant part of healing if not social change.
September 18, 2023
The book was jumping all over, at times, I forgot what I was supposed to be reading. I wonder what made the author mess this book project this much with little to no control over her material?
I was introduced to this author and the title by way of someone's podcast and the author was there, talking about her time in Dalton, in which the sex trafficker was teaching algebra. Once I grabbed the book, it began with a fling she had with the famed and old crime writer. It surely surprised me to see the author left her husband and children for this man.
I wonder what she summarized the theme of the entire book project was to be. As alluded to throughout the book, she was from the specific generation where certain values were shifted yet women and children's welfare was still sacrificed to serve patriarchy. As someone who came of age in the confusing time, the author wound up being exploited in the name of freedom or fun while disappointed by her parents preoccupied with their own pursuit of such things no better than their teenage children. The author did not come to realize her unfinished business as a child, growing up never feeling safe under parental protection and stability she could count on, she saw the old author as someone who possessed the quality she (and her father, or all adults she saw growing up) could look up to; writerly success or artistic accomplishment?) To get involved to the level, however, how much was she confused?
I ended the book betting she was lost on the way and/or barely remembered toward the end? At least I was puzzled.
There was a cameo appearance of Emily Carter (Roiphe). Even just for this, or although just for this (?) I am glad I read this one.
I was introduced to this author and the title by way of someone's podcast and the author was there, talking about her time in Dalton, in which the sex trafficker was teaching algebra. Once I grabbed the book, it began with a fling she had with the famed and old crime writer. It surely surprised me to see the author left her husband and children for this man.
I wonder what she summarized the theme of the entire book project was to be. As alluded to throughout the book, she was from the specific generation where certain values were shifted yet women and children's welfare was still sacrificed to serve patriarchy. As someone who came of age in the confusing time, the author wound up being exploited in the name of freedom or fun while disappointed by her parents preoccupied with their own pursuit of such things no better than their teenage children. The author did not come to realize her unfinished business as a child, growing up never feeling safe under parental protection and stability she could count on, she saw the old author as someone who possessed the quality she (and her father, or all adults she saw growing up) could look up to; writerly success or artistic accomplishment?) To get involved to the level, however, how much was she confused?
I ended the book betting she was lost on the way and/or barely remembered toward the end? At least I was puzzled.
There was a cameo appearance of Emily Carter (Roiphe). Even just for this, or although just for this (?) I am glad I read this one.
November 10, 2022
When i found this book, both me and a friend were selecting books at the school library. I was looking up some people I would be interested in, when my friend showed me it. I was interested by the title and the preview on the inside of the book. The book suprised me a little. It was 2 different stories in one, but interlinked. Schickel talks about her childhood and teenhood as well as her adulthood, with it alternating between them. It is super unique, and it broke up the story. That seems like a bad thing, but it is not. It keeps you in suspense the whole time. When you are in adulthood, you wonder what will happen in the teen years, and vise versa.
Another part that I enjoyed was the effects of the teenhood impacts the adulthood. It makes it feel like the reader's life. Where the decisions made a long time ago still impact the person. Especially with reliving both joy and trauma later on in life.
One quote that stood out to me was "But Phillip never let me forget it." in conext its about how Erika strip teased Phillip due to peer pressure. And how Phillip was bullying her for it. It speaks to me as I was harrassed online for about a year, despite my best efforts to not let them have the ability to. It made me feel those feelings again, and I know how awful of a situation it is to be in.
In Conclusion, this is a really good book. It has lots of adult themes, but I still recommend it for teens and above. It is 2 good stories intertwinded with one another.
Another part that I enjoyed was the effects of the teenhood impacts the adulthood. It makes it feel like the reader's life. Where the decisions made a long time ago still impact the person. Especially with reliving both joy and trauma later on in life.
One quote that stood out to me was "But Phillip never let me forget it." in conext its about how Erika strip teased Phillip due to peer pressure. And how Phillip was bullying her for it. It speaks to me as I was harrassed online for about a year, despite my best efforts to not let them have the ability to. It made me feel those feelings again, and I know how awful of a situation it is to be in.
In Conclusion, this is a really good book. It has lots of adult themes, but I still recommend it for teens and above. It is 2 good stories intertwinded with one another.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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January 20, 2023I'm not sure if nepotism greenlit this book but even if it didn't, what is she trying to say???
This book reads like the ramblings of a teenage girl, from cut out pages of multiple diaries. It makes sense that Erika Schickel said this was initially going to be a teenage memoir: the voice sounds immature and adolescent. The problem is the author's age and her lack of introspection and self-awareness.
By the time she starts to connect the dots and form themes, the book is over. It would have been more interesting if the story focused on the boarding school she attended and its culpability in hiding the predatory behavior of its faculty. Or if she elaborated on how they forced her to self-expel to devoid the school of unchristian values.
She also mentioned a school official using the fact the she was an actress to imply she was a liar. I wish she would have explored that further. Otherwise, this is a book about a promiscuous woman, who was loose with men she thinks are famous but may have been 40years ago. They are not even worth the Google search. She namedrops like she does not know what namedropping is. I had to look up and piece together her family tree because I was not familiar with any of them.
I finished reading only to mark it "read" but had I known how scattered the direction of this book would be, I would not have even started it. It's a shame because it's a fixable problem but maybe she doesn't take direction well, idk.
This book reads like the ramblings of a teenage girl, from cut out pages of multiple diaries. It makes sense that Erika Schickel said this was initially going to be a teenage memoir: the voice sounds immature and adolescent. The problem is the author's age and her lack of introspection and self-awareness.
By the time she starts to connect the dots and form themes, the book is over. It would have been more interesting if the story focused on the boarding school she attended and its culpability in hiding the predatory behavior of its faculty. Or if she elaborated on how they forced her to self-expel to devoid the school of unchristian values.
She also mentioned a school official using the fact the she was an actress to imply she was a liar. I wish she would have explored that further. Otherwise, this is a book about a promiscuous woman, who was loose with men she thinks are famous but may have been 40years ago. They are not even worth the Google search. She namedrops like she does not know what namedropping is. I had to look up and piece together her family tree because I was not familiar with any of them.
I finished reading only to mark it "read" but had I known how scattered the direction of this book would be, I would not have even started it. It's a shame because it's a fixable problem but maybe she doesn't take direction well, idk.
February 13, 2023
Erika Schickel’s memoir The Big Hurt is a very well-written account of how various people have done her wrong after promising not to. Her insights about the Very Important Writer with whom she committed adultery were especially interesting to me (I’ve never read any of his work even though it’s L.A.-based, which is usually all the bait required to tempt me. In fact for decades I had somehow conflated him mentally with Walter Mosley, whose important work I have also eschewed for reasons I no longer remember). The book repeatedly describes the writer’s sense of betrayal and abandonment when her parents divorced, separating from each other (and her) in order to pursue their independent interests. She writes that “as a child of divorce, I understood that marriage was simply an outfit people wore until they grew out of it.” Schickel supplies little information about how she helped her two young daughters understand why they were betrayed and abandoned when she separated from their father (and them) in order to pursue her independent interest … although she does relate her own pain when her lover treats her as each of them has treated others, responsible for no one’s happiness but their own.
My negative opinion of its author is obvious; as far as the book goes, I’d recommend it to readers who simply enjoy good writing. Those familiar with the L.A. mystery scene will probably enjoy the inside look.
My negative opinion of its author is obvious; as far as the book goes, I’d recommend it to readers who simply enjoy good writing. Those familiar with the L.A. mystery scene will probably enjoy the inside look.
January 20, 2022
thank you Hachette for an advanced copy, and I’m so sorry for my delay. content warnings for infidelity and statutory rape.
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Erika Schickel is a great writer. in some of the best prose that I’ve read in recent memory, she weaves together how her music teacher groomed and raped her at boarding school; how as an adult she had an all-consuming affair with a famous writer; and her family & personal life. the story is not organized chronologically, but instead Schickel structures it through feeling so that it comes across coherently as a deep, mature, sophisticated exploration of herself.
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notable quotation: “life isn’t linear; eventually we double back on ourselves, and hopefully we will have grown wiser, maybe we will have learned something. maybe I will stop repeating my mistakes. maybe I will accept that I will never get the closure I want.”
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readers glimpse what she feels — the BIG BURT — feeling like we know the author personally. Schickel’s BIG HURT represents the memoir genre at its best.
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Erika Schickel is a great writer. in some of the best prose that I’ve read in recent memory, she weaves together how her music teacher groomed and raped her at boarding school; how as an adult she had an all-consuming affair with a famous writer; and her family & personal life. the story is not organized chronologically, but instead Schickel structures it through feeling so that it comes across coherently as a deep, mature, sophisticated exploration of herself.
.
.
notable quotation: “life isn’t linear; eventually we double back on ourselves, and hopefully we will have grown wiser, maybe we will have learned something. maybe I will stop repeating my mistakes. maybe I will accept that I will never get the closure I want.”
.
.
readers glimpse what she feels — the BIG BURT — feeling like we know the author personally. Schickel’s BIG HURT represents the memoir genre at its best.
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