Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
by Roxane Gay I remember the day that Roxane Gay tweeted (@rgay) about the memoir she was working on. I went straight to Amazon and preordered it. I knew, my gut told me, that it was going to be an important book for me. That was January 2016. The book was, Gay explains now, much harder for her to write than she anticipated, and was delayed a year. Every so often Amazon would email me and ask if I wanted to cancel the order. Each time I declined. I waited, patiently, and finally received the book last week. It was worth the wait. Reading Hunger has left me feeling like an exposed nerve, like a mere breeze could be enough to break me apart. It cut so close, in so many ways, on so many levels. It is not my story, but it is. Gay recounts the horrible incident that happened when she was 12. She was brutalized, gang raped, and later bullied. She told no one. She swallowed it all. She felt guilty, ashamed, alone. She carried the weight of what was done to her, and she used her own weight to protect herself. I have not experienced anything on the scale that Gay did. I have never been brutalized, but I know what it feels like to have my innocence bruised. By the age of five I was sexually assaulted by two people, one male, and one female. They used me for their own sexual exploration and development. I didn’t know what it all meant. I didn’t have the words to tell anyone what had happened. I knew it was bad, that I must be bad, and I knew not to tell. So I didn’t. I didn’t tell anyone for almost 40 years. But I carried it. I felt the weight of it. I have forgotten a lot about my childhood, but those experiences are vivid and always there, waiting to pop up, waiting to remind me that I am damaged, and unlovable. I do not doubt for a second that my weight, my size, at least in part is connected to those early experiences. Hunger is an honest look at what it is like to move through a world which you are too big for, a world which was not made for you. Gay talks about things we don’t talk about, like the reality of being covered in bruises because you’re always forcing yourself into spaces that are meant for smaller people, like chairs with arms (#&$%). Like the fact that you are at once invisible and hyper-visible, people choose not to see you because they find it uncomfortable, or they feel they have the right to tell you about your body. Think about the arrogance of that. Gay has laid herself bare in this memoir. It is powerfully written, with grace and humour - the chapter about working out with her trainer made me laugh out loud. I wish I could make everyone read this and Lindy West’s Shrill. Maybe reading what it is like to be fat would generate some empathy to accompany all of the judgment. I feel like they have helped me to embrace the word fat, to own it. It is mine. It is me. I am also left feeling grateful for Gay’s words. As a librarian I probably take reading for granted a lot of the time. Hunger reminded me about the power of the written word, it reminded me that reading can cause physical reactions and emotional catharsis. Gay reminded me I am not alone. The power of words is amazing! Go read. An interesting article on the link between obesity and trauma: The Second Assault.
2 Comments
Olwen
6/21/2017 05:15:21 pm
Words are definitely powerful. Thank you for sharing yours.
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Lise
6/22/2017 08:13:19 am
I am about a third of the way through Hunger which I read in one sitting. I am taking a break for a few days as I am already devastated and there is a family celebration and I need to feel festive. Roxane is so brave...as are you. I assumed, which one should never do, that the loss of your Mom would be the childhood trauma you'd talk about here. How little we know of the suffering of others.Hugs.
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