After a horrifying rape at the age of twelve, she became very fat in order to protect herself: “I made myself bigger. The first four chapters start with a variation on “This is the story of my body.” Chapter 2 begins: “The story of my body is not a story of triumph.” Wary of discourses that politicize and often celebrate fat, such as body positivity or queer feminism, Gay presents a sad history of her size. Roxane Gay’s heartfelt new memoir Hunger puts its author’s struggle to write it front and center.
