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Hesitation Wounds: A Novel Hardcover – November 3, 2015

by Amy Koppelman (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 136 ratings
See all formats and editions
The acclaimed author of I Smile Back, Amy Koppelman is a novelist of astonishing power, with a sly, dark voice, at once fearless and poetic. In Koppelman’s new novel, Dr. Susanna Seliger is a renowned psychiatrist who specializes in treatment-resistant depression. The most difficult cases come through her door, and Susa is always ready to discuss treatment options, medication, and symptom management but draws the line at engaging with feelings. A strict adherence to protocol keeps her from falling apart. But her past is made present by one patient, Jim, whose struggles tear open Susa’s hastily stitched up wounds, revealing her latent feeling that she could have helped the people closest to her, especially her adored, cool, talented graffiti-artist brother. Spectacularly original, gorgeously unsettling, HESITATION WOUNDS is a novel that will sink deep and remain―like a persistent scar or a dangerous glow-in-the-dark memory.
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  1. Print length
    192 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    The Overlook Press
  4. Publication date
    November 3, 2015
  5. Dimensions
    5.7 x 0.9 x 8.4 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1468312189
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1468312188
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Hesitation Wounds reads like a fever dream, or the last second of a deeply feeling woman's life. It is full of brilliantly observed pain and truth. It is an in-depth unblinking report on the deepest of all bonds, familial love. It is spare but it is also somehow full. Its truths are so sharp I began to read with my head slightly averted, as if expecting the next blow. She is way more unflinching than you or me. Her language is simple, deceptively so, the further she goes, as if depth stole oxygen and there was only so much breath left for words, so they had better be true. And they are true. It's a jagged, dangerous, beautiful book that affirms life even as it affirms the impossibility of life. Like Beckett, she can't go on, she will go on.”
- David Duchovny, author of Holy Cow

“Amy Koppelman has wrangled into the world a marvel of a book in terms of language and character and story. It should find her the audience she’s long deserved.”
- Mary Karr, The New York Times bestselling author of The Liar's Club and Lit

“Fearless, unflinching, entrancing”
- Thomas Beller, author of J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artist

“Who are we without the ones we love? Amy Koppelman’s brilliant latest is richly sympathetic, and deeply moving, and truly, like that one lone star sparkling in the darkest sky. Gorgeously written, the novel is so hypnotic that you don’t dare risk taking your eyes from the page.”
- Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You

“Readers who like psychological fiction and don’t expect a conventional narrative will appreciate Koppelman’s exploration of the struggle to come to terms with loss.”
- Booklist

“[Koppleman’s] a novelist of astonishing depth and power, with a dark and haunting voice that is both lyrical and fearless.”
- Lilith

“Somber and absorbing.”
- Interview.com

“In her spare but richly layered third novel, Amy Koppelman explores what happens when a life ruptures with the trauma of loss ― and what happens with the sutures knitting that wound begin to unravel.”
- Bustle

“Koppelman’s short sentences read like bits of poetry or song lyrics. Her snapshot images build on each other, creating a kaleidoscope of Susa’s life. Throughout this slim novel, Koppelman maintains a mood that could, in lesser hands, dissolve into melodrama, but she succeeds with careful observations in precise and potent language”
- The Rumpus

About the Author

Amy Koppelman is a graduate of Columbia's MFA program. Her writing has appeared in The New York Observer and Lilith. She lives in New York City with her husband, Brian Koppelman, and their two children. Her previous novels are A Mouthful of Air and I Smile Back, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival and starred Sarah Silverman.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Overlook Press (November 3, 2015)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1468312189
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1468312188
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.7 x 0.9 x 8.4 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 136 ratings

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
136 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the writing style beautifully wrought and composed. They describe the story as heartfelt, poignant, and uplifting. Readers describe the book as brilliant, real, and a quick but deep read. They also mention the emotional content is very moving and intensely engaging.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more
Writing styleHeartfelt storyStory qualityReadabilityEmotional contentBeautyCharacter developmentHonesty
19 customers mention "Writing style"19 positive0 negative

Customers find the writing style beautifully wrought, composed, and poetic. They say the author writes fluently in the language of loss, chooses each word with care, and is a master with language. Readers also mention the themes are timeless and thought-provoking.

"“Hesitation Wounds” is a slender, beautifully wrought, novel that reflects on how some of us express the psychology of chronic emotional agony,..." Read more

"...This book is intelligent, almost poetic and more hopeful than some of her other work...." Read more

"...Her descriptions burn images into your mind, her characters' anecdotes are both revealing and unique, and her dialogue is both profound and..." Read more

"...her intention, the takeaway is another harrowing and haunting work of literary art." Read more

13 customers mention "Heartfelt story"13 positive0 negative

Customers find the story heartfelt, poignant, and sad. They say it explores themes of loss and loneliness. Readers also mention the book is uplifting in its offering of hope.

"...This book is intelligent, almost poetic and more hopeful than some of her other work...." Read more

"...The story explores themes of loss and loneliness, of the adversities one faces when coping with mental illness, of love and friendship and happiness...." Read more

"A poignant tale of grief and loss." Read more

"...worth knowing, and Hesitation Wounds is a unique, honest, emotional novel I couldn't put down." Read more

11 customers mention "Story quality"11 positive0 negative

Customers find the story raw, moving, and powerful. They describe the book as harrowing, haunting, and painful. Readers also mention the book is well-articulated and amazing.

"“Hesitation Wounds” is a slender, beautifully wrought, novel that reflects on how some of us express the psychology of chronic emotional agony,..." Read more

"...But whatever her intention, the takeaway is another harrowing and haunting work of literary art." Read more

"...It’s the kind of raw, honest story that lets you experience the words as you read them. It brought me face to face with my own loss...." Read more

"...Hesitation Wounds, like those previous works, is a painful tragedy filled with gorgeous prose. This time, though, we get a hopeful ending...." Read more

8 customers mention "Readability"8 positive0 negative

Customers find the book brilliant, intelligent, and a pleasure to read. They also say it's a quick but deep read that captures New York in the early 1980s.

"...This book is intelligent, almost poetic and more hopeful than some of her other work...." Read more

"...Reading this book is such a pleasure thanks to the authors incredible talent...." Read more

"...Koppelman's novel is so beautifully written that I found it an honor to read." Read more

"...This is a work to be savored and read, again and again. Much of it is sheer poetry. I cannot recommend it more highly. Buy it. Read it...." Read more

7 customers mention "Emotional content"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book very moving, emotionally charged, and engaging. They describe it as a real, gutsy novel about grief and depression.

"...The topic written about is something very emotional, personal and important...." Read more

"Hesitation wounds is the moving, heartfelt, and insightful story of a woman’s struggle to overcome past trauma, while managing a complicated, but..." Read more

"...of my favs--each paragraph, sentence is so beautifully crafted, it's mesmerizing...." Read more

"Hesitation Wounds is a very emotionally charged book that cuts deep into the human psyche...." Read more

6 customers mention "Beauty"6 positive0 negative

Customers find the book beautiful.

"...life of a future, happily-adjusted, family man, Jim, will be like is beautiful and cinematic...." Read more

"...Beautiful and real, Susa is a character definitely worth knowing, and Hesitation Wounds is a unique, honest, emotional novel I couldn't put down." Read more

"...It's a must read. Women are complex, beautiful creatures...." Read more

"Beautiful..." Read more

6 customers mention "Character development"6 positive0 negative

Customers find the characters complex and fully realized. They also say the female characters are layered.

"...Every character is complex and fully realized-- Susa, Ray, Jim, Daniel, Mai, even smaller characters like Jim's wife, Cindy-- stayed with me long..." Read more

"...The effect is a clear, unburdened portrait of her characters, their struggles and the story...." Read more

"...Highly recommend this for complexity of the characters and the nitty gritty of everyday life that Amy unearths and shares with us through the..." Read more

"...Her female characters are so layered, the book is a journey--complex, sad, fascinating." Read more

5 customers mention "Honesty"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book brutally honest, raw, and moving. They say it's real and profoundly personal.

"...It is simple and matter of fact. But it's the facts that people have the most trouble facing...." Read more

"...The subject matter is important and the author makes it feel profoundly personal and real.All in all, you must read this book...." Read more

"...Beautiful and real, Susa is a character definitely worth knowing, and Hesitation Wounds is a unique, honest, emotional novel I couldn't put down." Read more

"...It is a brutally honest, raw and moving tale of the narrator's journey from an unhappy place to a place of happiness and peace...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

David J. Stone
5.0 out of 5 stars beautifully wrought, novel that reflects on how some of ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2016
Verified Purchase
“Hesitation Wounds” is a slender, beautifully wrought, novel that reflects on how some of us express the psychology of chronic emotional agony, perhaps rooted in combinations of irrational fear(s), misguided guilt, the “quick sand” of grief, the residual disillusionment of personal failure, or regret, that heavy weighted remorse for a life not lived to it’s fullest; all potentially leading to debilitating bouts of depression.

Some of us, in a cry for help, physically hurt ourselves, slicing wrists with non-fatal "hesitation wounds’, and hopefully help will be there for you. Some slice deeply, with determined focus, and they leave a family mourning their loss, communally sharing the stigma of not having been the savior of their loved one as they self-destructed. Yet others, like the protagonist, Dr. Susanna Seliger, a psychiatrist ironically specializing in treatment resistant depression, has inflicted “hesitation wounds” upon herself that can’t be seen, and don’t leave outward scars…she cuts holes into her own fragile ego, stabs her sense of self-worth, slices off the hope for future happiness, and most hurtful, continually plunges in a dagger to keep open the wound of despair for a long dead brother…no fatal wounds here, barely visible to others, but a terrible burden none-the-less.

I’m not good at interpreting metaphor or allegory, but I’m guessing that Amy Koppelman is exceptional at creating them. If I wasn’t curious about the term and title “hesitation wounds”, and if I didn’t Google it, Ms. Koppelman apparently wasn’t going to spell it out for me…like a chiding teacher who points to the dictionary and says, “look it up, if you want to know the meaning”.

The book was written with a kind of chronological jumbling, frequently rolling into quasi Stream of Consciousness mode, which I normally hate, but it worked here. Again, because I’m not that clever, I’m thinking that this approach perhaps mirrored Dr. Seliger’s specialty, which was ECT, electroconvulsive therapy…ECT, as explained, is used when psycho-pharmaceutical options are not working. Though her patient, Jim, describes his sessions as getting his brain fried, Dr. Seliger is adamant to explain that the procedure has come a long way since Ken Kesey’s imaginings in the 1962 “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”.

In the end, this story is about grabbing onto hope, and not letting go. It’s about facing your demons and saying “no more, I’m done with you”. It’s about addressing the ghosts of lost loved one’s and explaining, “I’m alive, it’s still my time to engage with the living world”. It’s about mustering the courage to let go of a toxic real-time relationship. It’s about forgiving yourself for abandoning someone in the past who loved you without constraint or condition. It’s about traveling half way across the globe to claim the child who needs a mother, and to committing yourself to being that mother, a source of incessant love, for the rest of your days.
4 people found this helpful
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Chrissi Sepe
5.0 out of 5 stars A Real, Gutsy, And Moving Novel About Grief And Depression
Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2016
Verified Purchase
“Hesitation Wounds” is the story of Dr. Susanna Seliger who treats patients with severe depression by administering shock treatment therapy. For many years, she has shuffled through life by keeping herself closed off and ignoring her emotions which is why this work suits her. She doesn't believe in talk therapy and doesn't want her patients to confide in her. She just wants to buzz their feelings out of them. But everything changes when she treats Jim for whom the shock treatments don't seem to work. Talking to Jim takes her out of her shell and, in turn, forces her to face her grief over her brother, Daniel, who died when she and Daniel were both teens. “Hesitation Wounds” is mostly a dialog between Suze and her late brother. Many times, it reads like a letter to him. Throughout the book, Suze recounts moments from their life together. Many memories are pleasant. She recalls the summer when they hung outdoors with their friends, listening to the boom box, lying down and staring into the black city sky:

“It's the end of summer now. We are on our backs, arms and legs touching. We gaze at the moon. Margo thinks the moon is hanging especially low. It wants to shake your hand.”

But other times, the details of his tragic and somewhat reckless death creep through.

Her patient, Jim reminds her of Daniel. They both have similar builds and voices. Speaking of Jim elicits constant thoughts of death in her because he is suicidal. Just before he is about to receive another round of electric shock treatments which he has no faith will work, he asks her to tell him a story about what his life will be like six years from now. Koppelman's account through Suze of what a day in the life of a future, happily-adjusted, family man, Jim, will be like is beautiful and cinematic. It truly moved me, and I hope there will be a film version of “Hesitation Wounds” someday to see this passage unfold in pictures.

While most books depict grief by showing the event, having the mourner cry it out, completely traumatized, then describe them on the pathway to healing, Koppleman's portrayal of the grief experience is not like this. Grieving is not interpreted as overblown and dramatic. It is simple and matter of fact. But it's the facts that people have the most trouble facing. Grief does not get better over time but rather you learn to function better. As Koppelman explains, every day you are reminded of the person you lost through the mundane things around you. She asks: “What would Dan think of cell phones?” This sentence hit home for me because my father died in 1984, and with every new technology that comes out, I'm reminded of him: “What would Dad think of laptops? Social media? The internet?” This is truly what grief is all about: Your thoughts on a daily basis. In Koppelman's stream-of-consciousness dialog to Daniel, she writes:

“Things I forgot to ask: I forgot to ask you why you didn't like egg in your fried rice...how it was we began eating potato chips with ketchup, who your favorite Beatle was...”

“Hesitation Wounds” reminds us that life is about the little things. Besides grief, it is about depression and the simpler things most of us take for granted but can cause a person suffering from depression to get completely bogged down by. Every movement, interaction and inner thought becomes a feat of near impossibility, leading to exhaustion. Suze's depression is primarily caused by many years of unresolved grief. Here is how Suze has learned to survive her crippling thoughts of grief:

“I turn away. Memory is like this for me now. I can turn away from it. I repeat this thought out loud, as if the mere act of saying it, like an incantation, will transform the idea into reality. And because it's true. I can do this now.”

She stops and adds:

“Most of the time.”

Because that's how you move forward from grief. You just choose to forget. You don't heal completely, but you learn to live.
2 people found this helpful
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Kerroo
4.0 out of 5 stars You are right inside the main character's head
Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2015
Verified Purchase
Everything Amy Koppelman writes has a searingly honest quality. This book is intelligent, almost poetic and more hopeful than some of her other work. You always feel that you are inside the main character's heads - thinking their thoughts as they happen and feeling their emotions without a filter. Scary at times.
3 people found this helpful
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