Coming of age in the 70s with a checked out mother and a literary wunderkind of a father, Schickel reflects on growing up in a messy situation, and all the ways it fueled her to rebel — told simultaneously while Schickel is grown up, and seemingly recreating the relationship modeled for her by her parents — the memoir dares to ask: can we ever learn from our parents' mistakes? Or are we simply doomed to repeat them in different shades?

"The Big Hurt" is a compelling and multi-layered memoir by Erica Schnickel that delves into the challenges of growing up in the shadow of a famous father and an emotionally distant mother. Set in the 1970s and 1980s, the book explores the aftermath of Erica's expulsion from an East Coast prep school due to a relationship with a teacher.

The memoir intertwines two coming-of-age stories: the first follows a young and rebellious Erica as she navigates a predatory world and grapples with the consequences of her actions. The second narrative focuses on an adult Erica, who, while trying to confront her past, finds herself in a tumultuous relationship with a notorious LA crime novelist, leading to the dissolution of her marriage and a second period of exile.

Through vivid storytelling, "The Big Hurt" examines the impact of shame inherited through generations and the profound effects of traumatic experiences. It sheds light on the high society and fast-paced culture of 1970s Manhattan, which forced young girls to mature prematurely. Additionally, the memoir explores the enduring influence of self-absorbed literary figures and the ways in which women can become trapped in the web of male ego.

Schnickel's writing is provocative, searing, and darkly humorous, capturing the complexities of her personal journey. She skillfully navigates themes of family dynamics, love, loss, and self-discovery, offering readers a raw and honest account of her life. "The Big Hurt" is an introspective and thought-provoking memoir that delves into the profound emotional impact of one's upbringing and the choices made along the way.

A huge thanks to Hachette, NetGalley and Erica Schnikel for the advanced readers e-book. All opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this book!
THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS BOOK WITH ME!
I got behind in the COVID DRAMA and missed posting about this important book when it came out.
Thank you!

In absolutely not way could I relate to this book but at the same time, I could in everyday relate to this book. I think that's what makes Erika Schickel's writing and ability to tell a story so unique. it was great.

"This complex memoir shows what it was like growing up in the shadow of a literary father and a neglectful mother, getting thrown out of boarding school after being seduced by a teacher, and all of the later-life consequences that ensue.

In 1982, Erika Schickel was expelled from her East Coast prep school for sleeping with a teacher. She was that girl - rebellious, precocious, and macking for love. Seduced, caught, and then whisked away in the night to avoid scandal, Schickel's provocative, searing, and darkly funny memoir, The Big Hurt, explores the question, How did that girl turn out?

Schickel came of age in the 1970s, the progeny of two writers: Richard Schickel, the prominent film critic for TIME magazine, and Julia Whedon, a melancholy mid-list novelist. In the wake of her parents' ugly divorce, Erika was packed off to a bohemian boarding school in the Berkshires.

The Big Hurt tells two coming-of-age stories: one of a lost girl in a predatory world, and the other of that girl grown up, who in reckoning with her past ends up recreating it 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 shame handed down through a maternal bloodline and the cost of epigenetic trauma. It shines a light on the haute culture of 1970s Manhattan 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 spreading board of male ego."

It's James Ellroy if you got to that section and were wondering who it was like me!

If the reader is in search of a sincere, poignant, coming-of-age cum Gen X memoir, complete with soul searching, stark revelations, and radical transformation, The Big Hurt, is not it.

There is no doubt about author Erika Schickel’s intelligence, wit, and facility as a writer. Still, one can’t help but feel she tries too hard to prove herself worthy as the next generation star of a literary family. The number of high-brow, ten-dollar-words (“effulgent”) in the book goes beyond impressive and straight to irritating, despite the instances where more sophisticated euphemisms for the “C” and “F” words actually would be welcomed.

In this era of “sex positivity,” it’s not necessarily shocking for a memoirist to divulge their sexcapades, and this memoir focuses on two pivotal romantic relationships in Schickel’s life. Although not her first intimate encounter, the author’s brief fling with a teacher results in her expulsion from boarding school just weeks before graduation. Without revealing details, rest assured the guy is not a knight in shining armor.

Some 25 years later, wed and the mother of two children, Schickel’s entanglement with a world-renowned crime novelist – she dubs him Sam Spade, but you can easily crack the code with an online search – blows up her marriage and family.

An armchair psychologist can easily diagnose the author’s need for connection with, and approval from, these older men with whom she has partnered, but Schickel never seems to make the connection or, if she has, does not divulge it to the reader.

Throughout the book, there is evidence of parental neglect from an early age, especially following her parent’s bitter divorce. “Respectability had never really been an expressed value in our home.” Mom and Dad’s subsequent choices, language, and behavior hammer home the sad reality that parenting their teenage daughter was never really their thing.

Read between the lines and place yourself in the author’s shoes – or walk barefoot with her through a mandala – and The Big Hurt is filled with loss and pain and grief. But Schickel barely skims the gut-wrenching explosion of her family – the temporary loss of her kids, in particular – the emotional abuse and neglect suffered at the hands of her parents and the men in her life (including non-consensual incidents), nor the presumptive fallout from breakups. They had to be devastating, right?

Titling the memoir The Big Hurt (borrowed from Sam Spade, incidentally) isn’t enough. There’s the old writer’s saw: show, don’t tell. Show me so I can feel what you feel. The reader, in this case, is on the outside looking in, a bystander on the stoop who is never invited all the way through the door. I want to feel the author’s Big Hurt like the slice of a knife or a sucker punch, as well as the tender, sacred moments. I want to fall apart right along with her, then join her in picking up the pieces of her heart, which is essentially why The Big Hurt doesn’t work for me. In spite of clever prose, prurient details, a voyeuristic peek into the literati, and a contemporary #MeToo theme, the story simply lacks heart.

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.

Three stars because it was pretty well written, and there were a few new words I learned. I read to the end, but it was a slog, and I kept hoping for the tone to change, for the author to take a better look at the direction in which she was driving her life. My take was she didn't want to appear "ordinary." That's a shame, because some of the most interesting people I know are, on the surface, "ordinary."

I tried to get into this book. The author could not draw me in. There seemed to be no self reflection. No personal insight, just a recount of her childhood. Without a point of view there was no catch. I got through about a third of the book before I gave up. There seemed to be no moral ground on which to have any opinion about her actions. A nihilist void.