On Scaachi Koul’s ‘One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter’

Koul’s essays illustrate being a woman of color moving through the world, and the cultural divides between Canada and India.

Scaachi Koul
Nonfiction | Essays
256 pages
5.5” x 8.25”
Perfectbound Trade Paperback
Also available as e-Book and audiobook
Review Format: paperback
ISBN 978–1250121028
First Edition
Picador
New York, New York
Available HERE
$16.00

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter is a witty and truthful collection of essays that illustrates what it’s like to be a woman of color moving through the world, existing in transient spaces of time and place — notably the Internet — as well as the physical, social, and cultural divides between Canada and India.

Many of the earlier essays in the collection are rooted in fearless self-deprecating humor cataloging the life of a contemporary woman who doesn’t fit the idealized mold of femininity. She recounts tales of living with too much body hair, brown skin in a white world, and her preoccupation with her large nose. These pieces are light-hearted in tone and mimic the structure of blog posts; they are easy to read through, nod along with, and disregard with the turn of the page and start of another essay.

In “Size Me Up,” Koul shares her struggles of shopping for clothes when your body does not conform to fashion trends or expectations:

“If you are a woman reading this, you know this to be true: the possibility of getting stuck in a garment at a store where the employees have to cut you out of it is the beginning of the end of your life. It’s the saddest version of a C-section, where the baby is just a half-naked lady with no dignity.”

(p. 47).

Each essay is set against the backdrop of Koul’s family: her parents are both immigrants from India, and the cultural and generational differences are presented as fodder for her unique perspective on life as a first-generation Canadian. As much as she tries to distance her identity from that of her parents, she is unable to relinquish the attachment she has to her heritage. Furthermore, her biting wit and playful banter appears to be at least partially inherited from her father. She shares email exchanges with him between each essay that illustrate his humor.

The tone of the pieces shift from humorous observation to social commentary about midway through the book, and it is the more serious essays that demonstrate Koul’s true potential as a cultural writer.

In “Mute,” she discusses her obsession with Twitter and social media in general as a means for communicating her strong-willed perspectives. There is backlash on the web, though, that Koul experiences first-hand:

“We love to talk about the web as if it’s a limitless resource, like the only barriers we put on it are what the government will allow, what money will buy, what manpower can create. But all things built by humans descend into the same pitfalls: loathing, vitriol, malicious intent.”

(p. 134).

Perhaps the strongest piece is “Hunting Season” which narrates two separate occasions that Koul was roofied at a bar: once when she was eighteen by a seemingly kind patron and another time by the bartender. This essay doesn’t just offer the details of these experiences, however. They serve as a platform for offering thoughtful commentary about rape culture, and the misogynistic society that both excuses and perpetuates it:

“Often, people describe rape as an unfortunate accident, two drunk bodies colliding: it’s more about miscommunication than intentionally ignoring a lack of consent, or actively seeking a body and mind that can’t say no. But rape culture doesn’t flourish by error; it’s a methodical operation so ingrained in our public consciousness that we don’t even notice when it’s happening, and we rarely call it out even when we do see it.”

(p. 165).

Her attention to the predatory gaze of would-be rapists — which she refers to as surveillance culture — is chilling. Her commentary resonates even more as she tells stories about her attachment to Raisin, her young niece, and Koul’s longing to protect her as she grows into a woman in an untrustworthy world.

Although One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter is laugh-out-loud funny at times, its true strength lies in the shrewd observations of cultural double standards for women from an author who is making her mark by living the life she wants for herself.