Hunger

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body comprises Roxane Gay’s relationship with her body, her desire to heal from childhood trauma, and her hunger for a world that accepts people as they are. The book does not end in a “triumph” that celebrates weight loss—rather, it is a “confession” that Gay feels compelled share (4-5).

Gay describes her body as unruly, a mentality fueled by a childhood rape. Ashamed and unable to tell her parents what happened, she turned to food in an attempt to “become more solid, stronger, safer. I understood from the way I saw people stare at fat people, from the way I stared at fat people, that too much weight was undesirable” (15). She ate to turn her body into a fortress that men (like the boys who assaulted her) could never again abuse—and to forget the girl she was before her attack.

Gay seeks security but feels discomfort with her body, not only because of society’s obsession with thinness—but because of the physical difficulties that come with living in her body. Activities like hiking or spending the day at an amusement park are challenging if not impossible.

Within a decade of her assault, Gay gained a significant amount of weight.