Periodic Bitch

Every twenty-nine days, Emma Hardy becomes angry, monstrous and out of control. Then it passes, and she forgets about it. Until it cycles around again, of course. When a doctor diagnoses her with PMDD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, she begins to question when a mood is just a mood, and when a mood becomes an illness.

Searching for truth between the myths and taboos that surround menstruation, Hardy stumbles across crime scenes, feminist horrors and the history of hysterical illnesses. With unwavering honesty, Periodic Bitch offers a new understanding of our beliefs about female illnesses and the stories we tell.

"By turns thought-provoking, rage-inducing and darkly funny, Periodic Bitch is a candid exploration of medical misogyny and the terror of the unknown: the strangeness of what it is to live with a poorly understood chronic condition." Jennifer Down, author of Bodies of Light

"Revelatory. Emma Hardy blends astute research and the poetry of pain in a word-perfect memoir. Clever, funny and assured, Periodic Bitch is essential reading that illuminates one of our least understood and most destructive illnesses. Through her candid and moving self-reflection, Hardy resolutely captures the heartache of having a uterus that's trying to kill you (and everyone else)." Anna Spargo-Ryan, author of A Kind of Magic

"From the bloodshot eye of a cyclone, Hardy gently points at each ring of PMDD's vortex with unmatched wit and curiosity, inviting her readers into the inner workings of its torrents." Madison Griffiths, author of Sweet Nothings

"A beautiful literary memoir that is part detective story, part love story: why is the author like this? Can she love and be loved anyway? How do we make a life with someone, how do we work, write and create, when we can't even trust our own feelings? For those with PMDD, Periodic Bitch will be transformative - but all readers will gasp and admire how Emma Hardy captures the moment-by-moment experience of being alive." Jessica Stanley, author of Consider Yourself Kissed

Periodic Bitch offers a fiercely human corrective to the historically clinical explorations of menstrual and mental health with a unique magnetism." Kate Jinx, writer and film curator

"Periodic Bitch is much more than a medical memoir, it is an unflinching exploration of what it means to be human. Are we fleshy bags of hormones, Frankenstein monsters or social constructs; or are we, like the book, so wonderfully complex that we defy easy categorisation? Emma Hardy takes us to the dark places we didn't think we wanted to visit but she does so with such eloquence, intelligence and honesty that we are grateful for the experience." Melanie Cheng, author of The Burrow

"Periodic Bitch tracks the grinding cycles of everyday misogyny, existential uncertainty and the (sometimes) special powers of monstrosity in the same way it tracks the moods of Hardy's menstruation: You know it's coming, but how much damage might it cause? This work of menstrual poetics is intense and feral, as it must be." Hayley Singer, author of Abandon Every Hope