In A Woman in Pink, an unnamed woman recounts her deeply intertwined relationship with Dutch, a man she meets in her twenties and immediately loves. Dutch tells her he has distanced himself from the substance-fueled chaos that once consumed him, while she explains she has left her eating disorder in the past. Together, they convince themselves they’ve outrun their darkest histories. But over the span of their fifteen-year relationship, those shadows loom large, influencing their bond in ways they never expected.

She wants to free herself from the turmoil of addiction. She also wants to believe that Dutch is her Johnny Cash, that she is his June Carter, and that theirs is a great love story. When their histories and choices finally collide, she is forced to confront everything she thought she knew about love, identity, and what it means to truly heal.

Praise for A Woman in Pink

“I inhaled this book. Schikora’s writing is so sharp and honest, part of you wants to shake her nameless narrator by the shoulders as you would a dear friend. But another, bigger part is sucked fully into her story, which Schikora renders with uncommon empathy and scalpel-sharp details. A Woman in Pink manages to be both dazzling and relatable, without a single false note. Anyone who has ever made unwise choices in love, which is to say everybody, should read it immediately.”

—Miriam Gershow, author of Closer and Survival Tips: Stories

“In the middle of Schikora’s haunting novel, the unnamed main character looks at herself in the mirror and sees a fragmented, kaleidoscopic image staring back at her in pain. This could well be the singular image that permeates A Woman in Pink: the image of the Disease of the Lost Self. Each of Schikora’s gut-wrenchingly real characters is suffering from fragmentation and dissociation at various levels. They have become something they no longer recognize, and so, must face the reality of re-establishing a relationship with who they really are. Some begin that universal struggle; others fail to do so. Elegant and concise, this novel is rendered with great ease and confidence and hard-earned insight. A truly graceful and masterful book, it will stay with readers long after the final page is turned.”

—Jim Naremore, author of The Arts of Legerdemain as Taught by Ghosts and American Still Life

“So very true, this story. A Woman in Pink is a sharp and sophisticated novel of love and addiction and a certain kind of privilege that devours everything in its path. It’s also about friendship and family, the secrets we withhold from those who want what’s best for us, and how the ties that bind can keep us afloat, though just as easily, leave us to drown. Schikora’s writing is strong and elegant, a salve itself as we weather the blows of a lover who is as vulnerable as he is venomous.”

—Laura Scalzo, author of American Arcadia

“ A Woman in Pink had me from page one—a complex, thrilling tale of obsessive love spanning decades, of the role of privilege, the cost of addiction, and how past traumas inform the choices we make, whether we are aware of our predilections or not. What happens when we are so caught up in our own fabrication that we don’t realize we are only a footnote in the other person’s story? An electrifying debut by a writer to watch.”

—Kelly Fordon, author of Garden for the Blind and I Have the Answer

“The characters in Schikora’s A Woman in Pink are built with deep emotion and enlivened with blisteringly good dialogue. This is a story of the human heart, every aspect of its complicated motivations and needs, searching to find its way, and Schikora knows how to tell that story with the deft touch of a literary craftsman.”

—David W. Berner, author of the Fugere Prize winning novella American Moon

“Much like the sparks that fly from the first moments they meet, A Woman in Pink plunges the reader into a compelling relationship between two characters in recovery that blurs the boundaries between love and dependency. Set against the backdrop of the opioid crisis and the privileges of wealth, Schikora’s compelling prose vividly unspools the complicated threads of a long-term co-dependent relationship and its consequences. The protagonist’s hard-won sense of self in the wake of an eating disorder is challenged when she has to confront both her lover’s addiction and the truth behind his role in a tragic accident. As she navigates where redemption ends and enabling begins, the protagonist must reconcile her feminism with the duty of care women are expected to give to family and community, all while battling her own imposter syndrome. A Woman in Pink is a smart, suspenseful and wrenching story about learning to let go of the person who was the best worst thing ever to happen.”

—Laura Hulthen Thomas, author of The Meaning of Fear

“Anyone who’s ever been truly in love knows that it’s like riding a jet through breathtaking and turbulent skies. But being in love with an addict – well, that’s when the jet has lost an engine and the other one is in flames. No other book that I have read has ever described this experience with anything like the vivid emotional accuracy achieved by Megan A. Schikora in her novel, A Woman in Pink. She fully inhabits her character’s head and so does the reader, who feels acutely—through Schikora’s clear, fluid, always believable words—the euphoria of deep connection and caring that gets punctured randomly, over and over, by the shock of letdown, of lies and excuses, of inexplicable anger, and of the fear and pain and self-doubt that become the only constants in a relationship shaped by alcohol and drugs. The immersive flight on which this remarkable book takes a reader through the birth of joy and the dissolution of trust and hope proves intoxicating, in both meanings of the word."

—Carolyn Jack, author of The Changing of Keys

“Sometimes bitter, sometimes raw, always revealing and vulnerable, A Woman in Pink—told first-person by a main character whose name we never know—exposes how we normalize addictive behavior, how we enable those around us, and ultimately, how we give in and give up to forces that plague us. A beautifully written story about the constant cycle of loss and rediscovery.”

—David Haznaw, author of I Told You I Was Dehydrated

“Schikora never condescends to her readers, but deftly and subtly encourages them to grasp the vivid truths she exposes. In her raw, yet nuanced description of an addiction—there is more than one kind of addiction, readers will discover—and of the characters who fall into its meshes, readers will be able to understand on a deeper level what is involved in the death-spiral that has impacted so many of our lives. Readers should be prepared to buckle up for an emotional, authentic read that will linger with them long after they close the book.”

—Margo Sorenson, author of Secrets in Translation

“Addiction is chaos. Instead of focusing on the addict, this incredible story shows the emotional pull and complexity of loving someone in trouble. It will pull you in, making you realize the games addicts play while you remain empathetic to the choices family and loved ones face.”

—Marlene F. Byrne, author of Do Not Discard

“As readers become witness to the destructive and complex path of those afflicted by addiction—and those who love them—it becomes clear that the central characters are forever locked in an addict tango. Schikora’s insightful, resonant, and tragic tale ‘of wrath and love’ reminds us that when we love, we never give up, even if, or when, behavior signals not only our love’s ruin, but our own.”

—Deirdre Fagan, author of Find a Place for Me and Phantom Limbs

“Schikora’s A Woman in Pink brings into focus the nuances of love and friendship with subtlety and skill. This novel is replete with delightful allusions to classic Americana. Dutch, an alluring but impossible bad boy, is the Johnny Cash to our unnamed protagonist, the Woman in Pink’s June Carter. What can we do when the feeling of love is attainable but the people we love are not? ‘You can’t love a bad man,’ her mother insists. The redemptive element that shines out amidst this existential quandary is the radical empathy of female friendship and the stern but loving counsel that it can generate. Schikora examines the bad-boy trope without falling into its trappings. In the end, A Woman in Pink isn’t choosing between two different men, she’s choosing herself.”

—Sarah Pazur, author of “The Little Tramp,” TriQuarterly