Gang-raped at 12 by a band of boys led by her first crush, unwilling to tell her family what happened to her (and, in her belief, shatter their perception of her as a “good girl”), Gay used food as a coping mechanism as she sought the protection of a body she believed to be both removed from male desire and strong enough to fight back, a wish that ultimately proved destructive.Ī prolific essayist and cultural critic, Gay has tackled subjects both lighthearted and grave before.
Gay unflinchingly guides readers through an exploration of pain, desire, and the realities of her life as an overweight woman, following a cataclysmic early trauma back to the root, and recording the reverberations that event has had on the rest of her life. The author, whose much-celebrated works, Bad Feminist (2014) and Difficult Women (2017) made her a hero for millennial feminists, has never shied away from getting personal, but her latest project, a memoir called Hunger, goes deep. Roxane Gay has a knack for turning uncomfortable truths into necessary reading.
