This book is many things: feminist, anatomical, spiritual, literary, philosophical, memoir. I almost didn’t read it, because the themes are very heavy. It’s about pain. However, it turned out to be a thought-provoking, carefully written, rather profound read. The author explores the experiences of herself, family, friends and well-known figures (including Frida Kahlo, Kurt Cobain, Simone Weil, Franz Kafka and Nietzsche) to consider pain and suffering. It’s quite a short book with a lot packed in. As the daughter of a minister, she is particularly interested in religious attitudes to pain. She describes her journey to Lourdes to witness people’s faith in the healing water. Sometimes she acknowledges that the content of the book gets a bit ‘New Age’ but I think the point is that all beliefs are valid if they help us to try and make sense of pain. It’s not the sort of book that provides answers, but many viewpoints and sources are included. She also discusses biased views of pain according to the gender and race of the sufferers, which is an important topic. The only criticisms of the book I have are that for a well-known literary author and lecturer, it has a surprising amount of typos; and that the section about Cobain could have been more detailed, as she met and interviewed him.

If you think the book sounds interesting but are not sure if it will be too much, I encourage you to read it.

Published by Canongate, 2026.