About the Book

“[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

Where do we belong if we don’t fit in?

A 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 Wiser than Me

Susan 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.

In 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.

Swan 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, Big Girls Don’t Cry invites us to re-examine what we’ve been taught to believe about ourselves and ask how it could be different.

Critical Praise

“[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

“An exuberant meditation on feminism, sex, friendship, motherhood and writing. And learning to stand tall.”  — Susan Coyne

“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.”  — Pulitzer Prize-winner Jane Smiley

"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." — Meghan Bell, author of Erase and Rewind and The Cassandra Project

"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."

— Claudia Dey, author of Daughter

"Reminding us of the women who came before and setting the stage for the women who will come after, Big Girls Don't Cry is a triumph. Swan's memoir is a playful and poignant exploration of identity, belonging, and womanhood that is as intimate as it is insistent."  — Karen McBride, author of Crow Winter

"A 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." — Janika Oza, bestselling author of A History of Burning

"The deepest inspirations come from the most unlikely places. In Big Girls Don’t Cry, 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."  — Ian Brown, author of Sixty

-

Product Details

• ISBN: 9781443473040
• ISBN 10: 1443473049
• Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers
• On Sale: 05/27/2025
• Pages: 272
• List Price:13.99 CAD
• BISAC1 : BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs
• BISAC2 : BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women
• BISAC3 : BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Editors, Journalists, Publishers

Other Works by Susan Swan

• 

  Big Girls Don't Cry

  By Susan Swan

See all