HESITATION WOUNDS - Hardcover

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

Somber and absorbing.

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

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.

[Koppleman's] a novelist of astonishing depth and power, with a dark and haunting voice that is both lyrical and fearless.

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.

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

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

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.