Book Note: Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

The thing that struck me hardest, over and over, as read Roxane Gay’s Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, is the similarity in our responses to a variety of experiences. The book is her exploration of her body, the damage that was done to her that was the spark to her weight gain, a study in why she is overweight and how the weight influences her life. I loved it and I couldn’t stop reading it but I wanted to read it slowly and savor it. As I read I kept bumping into more ideas that made me wish I’d bought my own copy so I could underline and write “me too!” For example, this paragraph:

I start each day with the best of intentions for living a better, healthier life. Every morning, I wake up and have a few minutes where I am free from my body and my failings. During these moments, I think, Today, I will make good choices. I will work out. I will eat small portions. I will take the stairs when possible. . . But then I get out of bed. (pg 158)

I do that too. I promise myself that today will be the day I don’t eat any sugar, that I eat more vegetables, that I won’t sit writing at the computer but move more. And then I get up and I start making mistakes.

That wasn’t the only time my responses felt similar to Gay’s. I also resonated with the idea of dressing in dark colors as a form of self-protection.

The constant feeling that my body isn’t strong, slender, fast, firm, good enough.

The anxiety and frustration and downright sadness felt in dressing rooms.

The deep, abiding shame that I’ve failed to do the things I should’ve done with my body, that I’m not thin enough.

The thing is, though, is that I know I’m not fat.

I should apologize for saying that. I should clarify: I’m not fat, but I’m also not skinny. I don’t have that stereotypical runner’s body, with sculpted muscles and a thigh gap. I have disproportionately thick thighs, so my quads need one size of pants while my waist needs a size smaller. I have broad shoulders so women’s button-up shirts never fit right on me. I have tiny breasts but enormous side boobs. My belly is soft and bulges, my triceps skin is droopy, and my knees are starting to develop that middle-aged sag.

I hover close to the top of the BMI for my height, but I’m not overweight. My body is mostly socially acceptable in that I can wear average-sized clothes, but when you (I) start looking at different parts, their various faults (too big, too small, too droopy) add up to something almost good enough, but not quite, not really.

But the fact that my responses to Gay’s experiences feel so similar also make me feel a little bit shameful. Like I am conscripting her responses, like me finding myself in her experiences came from the same conceit that has created the need for intersectional feminism. Here I am, a woman who can wear off-the-rack clothing, thinking that my self-loathing can be similar to an overweight woman’s.

I haven’t ever struggled to fit into an airplane seat.

I haven’t ever worried about breaking a chair at a restaurant.

I haven’t ever been bruised by furniture.

I haven’t had to experience the things that Gay has experienced because of the size of her body.

But I still feel ashamed of my body.

I had this “me too!” response throughout the entire book. So, despite the rules of intersectional feminism telling me I am doing it wrong, despite being afraid that someone might think I am appropriating Roxane Gay’s feelings, what I am saying right now is I loved this book because it articulated my shame.

And that is why I love books anyway, or at least one of the reasons: because you can find something of yourself in the very best ones, even while you are learning about something other than yourself.

And because no one owns shame: no gender, no race. Fat people and skinny people. Everyone feels shame about something, and what I left Hunger with was the feeling that somehow it is shame we must stop. Not overeating or over-exercising, but shame. I mean: she’s Roxane freaking Gay. She is an amazing writer and thinker. She writes books that become bestsellers not because they appeal to the greatest common denominator but because they are discerning and intelligent and challenging. As a reader, I don’t care if she’s overweight. I wouldn’t care if she were anorexic, either—except I would want to read about those topics as issues, as I did in Hunger. What I care about is how her writing has influenced my life. She’s brought me to understandings I wouldn’t have grasped any other way. If I met her in real life, I would be awe-struck and probably wordless, but I wouldn't think "she's fat." I'd think "she's amazing."

My deepest wish, and the one I have not fulfilled for many reasons, one of which is shame, is to be a successful writer. Roxane Gay has done that—and yet, she still feels damaged, feels less-than, feels invisible in painfully visible ways. She still feels shame (which I can say of her only because she said it of herself). Even while she feels compassion and understanding for herself as well.

So what I left Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body with was, yes, a better understanding of how it feels to be overweight in a world that despises weight gain. I started to understand more clearly how weight is an emotional issue as much as it is a physical one. But I also gained an understanding of shame, of how it is working within my own psyche, how it is holding me back, how it makes it even more complex and complicated to feel happy or successful in our already complex and complicated world.

“When you’re overweight,” Gay writes, “people project assumed narratives onto your body” (pg 120). This is also true when you are not overweight. And it is also true, I am beginning to understand, that sometimes the stories come from within ourselves, that we are all of us walking around assuming other people think something negative about us, while really everyone is wandering around constructing negative narratives about themselves. Feeling awash in shame.

It’s the shame we all need to lose, somehow. Not the fat.

Comments

[Cindy deRosier]

It sounds great. Thank you for the recommendation! I just placed it on hold, so now I wait.