I live in a contradictory space where I should try to take up space but not too much of it, and not in the wrong way, where the wrong way is any way where my body is concerned.” And yet, as a feminist, I am encouraged to believe I can take up space.
As a woman, as a fat woman, I am not supposed to take up space. “I am hyperconscious of how I take up space. I hope that by sharing my story, by joining a chorus of women and men who share their stories too, more people can become appropriately horrified by how much suffering is born of sexual violence, how far-reaching the repercussions can be.” That’s what matters and is even more a travesty here, that having this kind of story is utterly common. I am one woman who has experienced something countless women have experienced. I do not want pity or appreciation or advice. “If I must share my story, I want to do so on my terms, without the attention that inevitably follows.
“We don’t necessarily know how to hear stories about any kind of violence, because it is hard to accept that violence is as simple as it is complicated, that you can love someone who hurts you, that you can stay with someone who hurts you, that you can be hurt by someone who loves you, that you can be hurt by a complete stranger, that you can be hurt in so many terrible, intimate ways.” Check out the quotes below to view a small collection of Hunger’s many brilliant highlights. Hunger in particular explores childhood trauma, obesity, feminism, race and relationships, making for difficult but necessary reading.
I was a mess and then I grew up and away from that terrible day and became a different kind of mess-a woman doing the best she can to love well and be loved well, to live well and be human and good.”Īlso the author of Bad Feminist and Difficult Women, Gay consistently tackles volatile subjects in her writing. It’s ultimately a challenging book to describe, and Hunger’s through line is best explained by Gay’s writing itself: “When I was twelve years old I was raped and then I ate and ate and ate to build my body into a fortress. Yet saying that Gay’s memoir, Hunger, recounts her life is an oversimplification of the text. “Here I offer mine with a memoir of my body and my hunger.” What follows are 300 pages of pain, honesty, trauma, joy, loneliness, wisdom, despair and power that chronicle Gay’s life. “Every body has a story and a history,” Roxane Gay writes in her new book.