Content warning: sexual assault.
If you follow this blog with any kind of regularity, you may have noticed that it’s been a little quiet on here lately. The reason for that is because I have been in America for five weeks! For that five weeks I set myself a challenge: to spend five weeks reading only American literature. I asked around for recommendations, but I had a clear idea of some books that I was going to read and this one was on top of the list. This wasn’t the first Roxane Gay book I had planned to read, but after the controversy earlier this year, I knew that it had to be. I cracked it out on my eReader as soon as the plane took off.
“Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body” by Roxane Gay is a memoir of her life primarily about her experiences being a woman of size. After being gang raped as a teenager, Gay turned to food not only as a comfort but as a means to make herself bigger and therefore more invulnerable. However, the more weight she gained, the more her body was scrutinised, criticised, dehumanised and even ridiculed by those around her; including those who loved her the most.
This book starts off very strong. Gay has a clear, unequivocal tone in her writing that demands to be listened to. The book oscillates between her experiences of sexual assault and being subject to her parents’ efforts to control her weight gain as a child, and her experiences moving through the world as an adult black woman of size. Gay’s book is divided into 6 parts. The first 3 parts chronicle her life from child to adult with a focus on the lack of autonomy she had over her own body. I think these are the strongest because they have such a clear narrative structure and move chronologically through Gay’s trauma, her difficult years as a young adult and eventually finding her voice through writing. The remaining chapters are more general commentary on broader social issues, such as the depiction of size in media, and Gay’s own experiences with doctors, sexuality and race. I think however the second half of the book might have benefited from a more rigorous structure. It does get a little meandering and I think the later chapters, while powerful individually, could have been linked more strongly thematically.
Nevertheless, Gay’s observations are ones that would resonate with most readers. In a time when our media is saturated with phrases such as “obesity epidemic”, fatphobia is a real thing and I think it’s critically important to remember that regardless of size or shape, people are still people and still deserve respect and compassion.
Tinted Edges 