{"product_id":"big-girls-dont-cry-a-memoir-about-taking-up-space-isbn-9781443473033","title":"Big Girls Don't Cry: A Memoir About Taking Up Space","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eGLOBE AND MAIL \u003c\/i\u003eTOP 100 BOOK OF THE YEAR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[Swan’s writing offers] not only an enjoyable read, but also the chance to think and reflect on the vast complex living entity that is the world.\" —Nobel Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhere do we belong if we don’t fit in?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA memoir about what it means to defy expectations as a woman, a mother and an artist, for readers of Joan Didion and Gloria Steinem and listeners of the podcast \u003ci\u003eWiser than Me\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSusan Swan has never fit inside the boxes that other people have made for her—the daughter box, the wife box, the mother box, the femininity box. Instead, throughout her richly lived, independent decades, she has carved her own path and lived with the consequences.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this revealing and revelatory memoir, Swan shares the key moments of her life. As a child in a small Ontario town, she was defined by her size—attracting ridicule because she was six-foot-two by the age of twelve. She left her marriage to be a single mother and a fiction writer in the edgy, underground art scene of 1970s Toronto. In her forties, she embraced the new freedom of the Aphrodite years. Despite the costs to her relationships, Swan kept searching for the place she fit, living in the literary circles of New York while seeking pleasure and spiritual wisdom in Greece, and culminating in the hard-won experience of true self-acceptance in her seventies.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSwan examines the expectations of women of her generation and beyond using the lens of her then-unusual height as a metaphor for the way women are expected not to take up space in the world. Inspiring and thought-provoking, \u003ci\u003eBig Girls Don’t Cry\u003c\/i\u003e invites us to re-examine what we’ve been taught to believe about ourselves and ask how it could be different.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“Speaking as a fellow oddball, I think that this is the best book about coming to terms with your differences from the norm (especially for women), that I've read. It's insightful, honest, and adept. Definitely, one of a kind.”  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePulitzer Prize-winner Jane Smiley\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"In this riveting and vulnerable memoir, Susan Swan sheds light into the psychology and history of second-wave feminism, as she attempts to break out of the boxes that confine her – including the ones of her own making. In a world that demands women stay small, or to play-act as men to be taken seriously, this is the story of a woman who desired – who indeed had no choice – but to be big and beautiful.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMeghan Bell, author of Erase and Rewind and The Cassandra Project\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Reminding us of the women who came before and setting the stage for the women who will come after, \u003cem\u003eBig Girls Don't Cry \u003c\/em\u003eis a triumph. Swan's memoir is a playful and poignant exploration of identity, belonging, and womanhood that is as intimate as it is insistent.\"  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKaren McBride, author of Crow Winter\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"\u003c\/em\u003eA warm, generous, and sharp reflection on a lifetime of daring to resist the boxes that seek to contain us. Radiating with both defiance and tenderness, this book is a delight.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJanika Oza, bestselling author of A History of Burning\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The deepest inspirations come from the most unlikely places. In \u003cem\u003eBig Girls Don’t Cry\u003c\/em\u003e, Susan Swan’s deliciously unconventional and snappily readable memoir, one of Canada’s best (and tallest) novelists trains her keen gaze upwards---at the astonishing ways her unconventional height has shaped everything from her relationships to her writing. A rewarding book for anyone who has been an outsider, forced to see themselves as they are—only to better understand the manageable scale of the world around them.\"  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIan Brown, author of Sixty\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The avowed feminist details a heart-rending struggle to reconcile her height with societal expectations of women, and, at 79, realizes her body is more than enough, and not too much.\"  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eZoomer Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Shot through with light, this book is an original treasure. In her direct and mesmeric prose, Susan Swan delivers a portrait of becoming and belonging––a memoir of a life lived vividly and daringly in pursuit of liberty of expression in art and sex, motherhood and feminist justice. By escaping the boxes she was cast into, Swan redefines what a life and a body can hold.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eClaudia Dey, author of Daughter\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“An exuberant meditation on feminism, sex, friendship, motherhood and writing. And learning to stand tall.”  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSusan Coyne\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[Swan’s writing offers] not only an enjoyable read, but also the chance to think and reflect on the vast complex living entity that is the world.\"  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNobel Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44890890535141,"sku":"NP9781443473033","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781443473033.jpg?v=1773959847","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/big-girls-dont-cry-a-memoir-about-taking-up-space-isbn-9781443473033","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}