Canadian author and TMU alumna makes the audience laugh over a book that might leave them crying

By Liana Yadav

On a Tuesday evening, around 400 people gathered at the Toronto Reference Library to hear a beloved Canadian author talk about her follow-up memoir eight years after her first book, One Day We’ll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter was published in 2017. From Penguin Random House once again, Sucker Punch by Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) alumna Scaachi Koul came out on March 4 this year. The book is a collection of essays that look at her life and relationships since 2017 and what has become of them.

Having written for magazines such as BuzzFeed, Flair, HuffPost, The New York Times and now a senior writer at Slate, Koul rose to prominence soon after she graduated owed to her “ability to mix sarcasm and sentimentality” in her writing. Around the same time, Koul became Twitter-famous for her abrasive yet humourous tweets that often shot digs at actor Ben Affleck. Koul never held back — many loved her for it, some loathed her because of it. It’s dangerous for a South Asian woman to be so forthright with sharing the intricacies of her personal life. It shows that women of color can assert dominance and wreak havoc of a kind that reclaims their power and lends strength to each other, simply by creating community. Koul has long since left X (formerly Twitter), citing both her disdain for what has become of the platform and personal choice to no longer seek validation online the way she used to. 

At her book launch, hosted as a part of the Salon Series by the Toronto Public Library (TPL), Koul showed up in bright pink heels, sparkling blue pants and the word ‘PRENUP’ dangling down her ears in silver block letters. She sat down comfortably across from her friend and host, Elamin Abdelmahmoud — a writer, culture and politics commentator and broadcaster — as she mercilessly made fun of his outfit of a cream hoodie and brown pants that she claimed made him look like an ice cream cone. Abdelmahmoud and Koul have known each other since they worked together at Buzzfeed. 

Then a fresh graduate of TMU’s School of Journalism, Koul had found her online voice in sharing her pop culture takes and funny, completely unhinged emails written by her dad. With a cutting sense of humour and an award-worthy ability to roast, Koul has been breaking barriers for South Asian women since she launched her career. She never hid behind who she was — a child of immigrant parents from Kashmir, India and a woman who has dealt with shame behind parts of her identity all her life. Now 34 years old, after a divorce and years of intense internet vitriol and love, Koul exudes confidence in who she is. She has come far and the only person who carried her all this distance is her.

After asking Koul why she is the way she is, to which the author quipped she is mentally ill, Abdelmahmoud raised an important question: why so much time between the first book and the second?

“It’s because everything that happened in between needed to happen for me to be ready for what I had to say in Sucker Punch,” Koul said. 

“Look, I was burnt out for years. And as much as the incessant online trolling was part of it, I was dealing with a crumbling marriage, my mom getting cancer and losing my job. I was screaming into the ether for a long time when I realized that I had gotten a lot about my life wrong in my first book.”

One Day We’ll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter (2017) recounts the way Koul struggled with parts of her Indian identity growing up in a predominantly white neighbourhood in Calgary, her relationship with her body, her friendships at university, experiences with sexual harassment and largely her relationship with her parents. After the book came out, Koul went on to marry and then divorce her ex-husband years later and that is how Sucker Punch started to come together.

“I signed on with Penguin [Random House] to write Sucker Punch soon after my first book. For the longest time, I would write something and send it to my editor, who is also one of my closest friends and she’d immediately say no. I didn’t know it at the time but I hadn’t done the reckoning I needed to do for this book to be… real.”

When asked if that meant her first book painted a rosy picture of her relationship, hence creating a false narrative, Koul adamantly said no. “I was being honest at the time about what I thought was happening. And afterwards, when I realized I needed to walk away, I felt so furious at myself for getting it wrong.” 

Koul compared this feeling to walking around naked in public when she thought she was wearing clothes, but everyone else could see the truth.

“At the end of the day, the person I was lying to was me. I am so good at that, by the way. If there is something I don’t want me to know, I won’t tell me,” Koul joked and the audience erupted with laughter. 

Much like her writing, her live introspection was interspersed with clever humour and witty analogies. Abdelmahmoud joked that he should just sit back and let Koul perform a tight five. 

“Oh,” Koul quipped, “It would be much longer than five.”

When asked about the final push that set Sucker Punch in motion, Koul said it was untenable anger that cracked her open. “There is no misery worse than telling yourself a false narrative, and then living that life. Once I was on the other side and ready to face the truth, I found a direction to head in and my editor started liking my drafts.”

The crowd seemed excited to ask questions when the Q&A session started and Koul eager to answer them. When an audience member asked who Koul would like to play in her memoir, she joked, “I am not sure but if any of you says Mindy Kaling, I swear to god…” 

She also talked about her feelings towards the internet, having once been incredibly active across several platforms. “I don’t seek fights the way I used to. I quit X years ago but my brain still thinks in 140 character sentences so I created a newsletter where I share those thoughts. It’s… I guess, a mix of evolving with the times and also growing up.”

“I was screaming into the ether for a long time when I realized that I had gotten a lot about my life wrong in my first book”

The event ended with the author and host hugging as the audience clapped and hooted. Tote bags and books were available for purchase and a long line quickly formed in the back as people waited to get their copies signed by Koul. 

I finished reading Scaachi Koul’s first book in two days, both because I enjoyed the writing and because so much of her story mirrored my own. As a South Asian woman living on my own far away from the familiarity of family, friends and my old life, Koul’s essays helped me feel seen. By sharing her stories with complete earnesty and laugh-out-loud humour, Koul is lending confidence to many women like me, evidenced by the sold-out event which filled the room with giddy readers excited to meet an author they admire.