I Fear My Pain Interests You by Stephanie LaCava
“I had fascinated him enough to sustain our connection for two months. He had to do very little – arrive and pick me up and put me down when he wanted to leave. I must have done something to make him retract. This became my focus, the thing to solve. That masochistic toil, to go back over every day. If I could find a pattern to it, I could solve his disappearance. Science.”
‘Chic sad girl’ novel tropes are plentiful, but what about one where our narrator can’t physically feel pain to go alongside her emotional numbness?
So sets the scene for Stephanie LaCava’s novella, I Fear My Pain Interests You (2022). Born to wildly famous but chronically unavailable punk musician parents, Margot has lived a life of privilege and nepotism. Her grandparents likewise stem from musical show-business royalty. When Margot is left to be raised by her widowed grandmother, Josephine, at age nine, she grows up encouraged to pursue her dreams as an actress. Josephine is well-connected enough to support her in finding roles but equally controlling to command when, where and how the acting will take place.
The book opens with Margot travelling by plane to Montana, following a tumultuous on-again-off-again relationship with an older man we know only as the Director. Starved of affection by both her mother and grandmother, Margot has conflated the giving of physical intimacy with genuine love and care – and we see the men she interacts with taking full advantage of this: “his absence felt violent because the intimacy had been so tender.”
Before we learn the full details of why Margot has decided to flee, it flashes backwards to explore some of her childhood experiences.
In a scene as a young girl travelling with her mother on tour, we learn that Margot fell and cut her leg, a gash that should have caused some form of reaction from her but to which she seems unconcerned. Though young, she still notices the strange way her mother and others look at her following the incident: “I felt nothing but embarrassment…the throb of prying eyes.”
Flash forward, and a slightly older Margot has become obsessed with counting the cows that live in the fields around Josephine’s home. Discovering the fence is electric, she begins to experiment with touching it:
“I took two ends of wire, threaded them together and felt something very faint. It began in that hard callus on my left foot and ran to each toe. I braided the two wires more tightly and licked them, closed my eyes and let my mouth fall open, my jaw widen. And for a moment, I was outside of my body, looking at myself.”
Margot attends the college Josephine chooses for her, Brown, where her mother also attended, but she fails to graduate after she is expelled for hoarding drug paraphernalia in her room. She moves to her grandfather's apartment in Manhattan and begins her affair with the Director but is later expelled by Josephine, who needs the space for other guests. Rejected, dejected and at an all-time low, Margot heads to Montana to stay in a rural property owned by her college roommates parents (Lucy). Here the narrative picks up once more from the opening chapter.
Margot comes full circle, injuring her leg without realising while out riding her bike; only this time, instead of disturbed glances, she is met by the powerful curiosity and “pathological calm” of a new man she meets, whom she dubs Graves. A neurosurgeon and trauma specialist, Graves instantly recognises and diagnoses Margot’s condition: congenital analgesia, the physical inability to feel pain.
From the moment Margot meets Graves, we already have a strong idea of where things are heading. Graves is once again an older man: he is creepy, domineering, withholds personal information and is emotionally distant. Margot acknowledges and dismisses these red flags in favour of courting his intense fascination with her, or more accurately, her condition.
They watch movies and then have sex, or vice versa. Margot’s desperation to feel wanted and needed sees her pushing through red flags, even when Lucy calls to warn her away from Graves. Margot knows what will happen but seems to crave it as much as she fears it – much like toying with the electric fence as a child:
“I read a book once that said psychologically sound sex was a way of showing gratitude to your partner. This was never how I experienced it. With Graves, the exchange became a way for someone to ignore my needs. Without physical pain, this masochistic ecstatic love is impossible. The boundaries don’t exist to break down. Is it still as dangerous when you lack the receptors to warn you?”
The book has divided readers, and it’s easy to see why. LaCava’s prose is sparse, restrained and imbued with the arty intellectualisation of even minute details. Everything is treated with the same scrutiny. Except for the core premise the book sets us up for: Margot’s inability to feel pain and the result of her dysfunctional relationship with Graves. Just as things are beginning, they end, and it is hard not to feel like you want more.
But perhaps here is LaCava’s greatest trick. We are interested in Margot’s pain – but we are equally denied it.
I Fear My Pain Interests You is an interesting exploration of men’s objectification of female pain and how women can become trapped in the push-pull of consent and victimisation of this process. While not a new topic to be explored, there’s something compelling about LaCava’s telling.
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com
