rewrite this title ‘Modern Love’ Podcast: Neko Case: ‘If I Didn’t Yell the Truth, What Good Was I?’

In a new memoir out next week, the singer-songwriter Neko Case shares some painful childhood memories. In the studio with Anna Martin, Case is open and unapologetically angry as she describes being treated like “an unwanted child.” Both parents, she says, struggled with trauma and addiction. They often left her with no food and only her pets for company. Case also reads a Modern Love essay about the complex heartbreak that comes with being estranged from a parent with an addiction, and the joys of finding love and acceptance in the wake of that pain.

Neko Case’s memoir, “The Harder I Fight the More I Love You,” comes out Jan. 28.

Caitlin McCormick’s Modern Love essay, “My Mother, the Stranger,” can be found here. McCormick, who recently published a short fiction piece in The Sewanee Review, is working on a novel.

Listener callout alert: For our upcoming Valentine’s Day episode, the Modern Love team wants to hear about a moment when you knew you were falling for someone. Whether it happened all at once or as a gradual process, we want to learn about how it happened. Where were you? What did it feel like? What did you do next? (You can tell us about a current relationship, a past love or something happening to you right now.)

The deadline is Feb. 5, 2025. The submission instructions are here.

How to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times

Links to transcripts of episodes generally appear on these pages within a week.

Modern Love is hosted by Anna Martin and produced by Reva Goldberg, Emily Lang, Davis Land and Amy Pearl. The show is edited by Jen Poyant, our executive producer. Production management is by Christina Djossa. The show is mixed by Sophia Lanman and Daniel Ramirez and recorded by Maddy Masiello and Nick Pitman. It features original music by Pat McCusker, Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Carole Sabouraud and Rowan Niemisto. Our theme music is by Dan Powell.

Special thanks to Larissa Anderson, Dahlia Haddad, Lisa Tobin, Brooke Minters, Sawyer Roque, Eddie Costas, Daniel Jones, Miya Lee, Mahima Chablani, Nell Gallogly, Jeffrey Miranda, Isabella Anderson, Christine Nguyen, Reyna Desai, Jordan Cohen, Victoria Kim, Nina Lassam and Julia Simon.

Thoughts? Email us at modernlovepodcast@nytimes.com.

Want more from Modern Love? Read past stories. Watch the TV series and sign up for the newsletter. We also have swag at the NYT Store and two books, “Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss and Redemption” and “Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less.”