A stylish and raw exploration of bodies, trauma and 1960s cinema

Margot is the child of renowned musicians and the product of a particularly punky upbringing. Burnt-out from the burden of expectation and the bad end of the worst relationship yet, she leaves New York and heads to Montana. She's seeking to escape both the eyes of the world and the echoing voice of that last bad man. But a chance encounter with a dubious doctor in a graveyard, and the discovery of a dozen old film reels, opens the door to a study of both the peculiarities of her body and the absurdities of her famous family.

A literary take on cinema du corps, Stephanie LaCava's new novel is an audaciously sexy and moving exploration of culture and connections, bodies and breakdowns.

"Elegant ... [I Fear My Pain Interests You] is seeded with references to jazz music and to body-horror French arthouse film, and these frame LaCava's attempt to do something transformative with violence and suffering." - Guardian

"A visceral, exorcism-like exploration of a body blunted to pain and a mind moulded by generational trauma, lust, and dysfunction ... sensual, slippery and stylish." - The Face

"I Fear My Pain Interests You is meticulously constructed, with each part supporting and supported by the others. Controlled self-awareness like this in novels makes me pay close attention, enriching my experience." - The New York Times

"LaCava's book animates its story with something of Patricia Highsmith's sociopathology and Clarice Lispector's macabre glamor." - XRAY

"A smart, sharply observed critique of literary tropes and the art world" - Frieze

"A slippery, stylish book" - Vogue

"Stephanie LaCava's new novel is a destabilizing read-like coming across a sudden anagram in a sentence. The book's strikingly true-to-life characters are similarly jarring: constantly misunderstood and misunderstanding and fiercely protective of fortresses of self-delusion (though LaCava resists moralization at every turn)." - Bookforum

"The cool girl book of the year" - 032c

"I can't wait to be lured into another of LaCava's stylized settings, this time an exploration of 1960s cinema and bodily absurdities." - Vulture

"I haven't read a book in a while that just pulled me in, and you're so immersed in the characters and in the world. It's quite a slice of life." - Vanity Fair

"The daughter of punk rockstars, with a jeweled cigarette case full of pills and a bloody face, flees to Montana for a quieter life - only to uncover her congenital inability to feel pain, which puts her at risk of one man's desire and ambition, in this absurdist novel about fame and bodies." - Nylon, September 2022's Must Read Book Releases

"It's the liquid flush of the voice undulating beneath the veneer of the book's punky mask that drew me in." - The Brooklyn Rail

"Whether it's [Margot's] pain or her detachment that fascinates us, I Fear My Pain Interests You examines issues of power, how it is or is not inherited, what the consequences of being defined by others are, and the ways pain shapes us." - BOMB

"Understated and elegant, LaCava's writing inspires both dread and longing; her characters, nearly all of them direct to the point of cruelty, also seem unable to say anything that would lead to real emotional connection. The horrors of this book build so subtly that their apex seems both unfathomable and inevitable, like a deep fear that finally comes to pass." - Lit Hub, 22 Novels You Need to Read this Fall

"Nonlinear in format and stark in its use of language, this brief but impactful novel is going to stay with me for a while. I Fear My Pain Interests You is a stark and singularly unforgettable read." - Buzzfeed

"LaCava approaches her second novel, I Fear My Pain Interests You, as the next logical step beyond our obsession with a sad-girl world. The kind of dissociative feminism she skewers is a well-documented media phenomenon. Rather than further suggesting distance and aloofness like the cool-girl trope, LaCava inverts this concept to lift Margot away from the trappings of commodification." - The Cut

"[I Fear My Pain Interests You] considers what it means to be a woman in the world, as well as pain, sex, fear, corporeal or otherwise, and maybe even love as well." - The Chicago Review of Books

"Like a lyric from a cherished song or a fragment from a beloved poem, I Fear My Pain Interests You hints at all the most compelling themes - hurting, intrigue, dominance, submission, lust, and dysfunction." - AnOther

"Stunning ... I Fear My Pain Interests You is slim but satisfying, with LaCava as our talented chef who won't let us forget whose bones we're gnawing on." - The Times

"Sinister, revolting - and uncannily elegant." - Telegraph

"Intriguing." - ArtReview

"A quality of distance - from sensation and experience, from self and others - manifests most effectively when characters are talking; no one writes dialogue quite like LaCava." - Bookforum

"[I Fear My Pain Interests You] sets up inheritances - of privilege, or trauma - as stages for exploring the masochistic relationships between self-awareness and pain." - Times Literary Supplement

"Depressed, isolated, and deprived of her own creative outlet, Margot's plight is tragic, but not without its own perverse sense of comedy: no pain, no fame." - Hazlitt

"A darkly humorous look at wealth, nepotism and the emotional turmoil of the protagonist, Margot, who is blessed with both. A writer to watch." - Stylist

"A cool, cutthroat razor of a novel." - The New Republic

"Alluring and melancholy." - GQ