I learned about Blackness and how others are navigating life with Black bodies in 21st century America. New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health.
How dare she even try? That is not something I will ever be required to understand. I learned about fashion, education, fatness, clothing, sexuality, and inequality by studying memoirs written by Kiese Laymon, Tanisha C.
But for her, it reaches a point of panic.
And there are still things I question, as though I am less worthy to like clothes because I am not model-thin. Forthcoming: How to Be Heard & The Year I Learned Everything. To order a copy for 11.89, go to or call 03. As someone who is still just over half Gay’s size, it took me a long time to be comfortable enough to wear certain things. Adapted and abridged from Hunger: A Memoir Of (My) Body, published on 6 July by Corsair at 13.99. As someone who has a monster collection of heels and other cute shoes, but wears black flats almost exclusively, I can get that. But when the only thing you want to do is not stand out, you stick to your uniform of dark jeans and tee shirts, no matter what extensive wardrobe you might have featuring the opposite. Sure, you want to wear something fun, flirty, and flamboyant. I read Trevor Noah’s memoir, Born a Crime, a couple years ago, and had a small window into what it was like growing up as a mixed race child during Apartheid. Paradox is a recurrent theme: She uses it to illustrate her. Even the simple idea of dressing yourself, wearing clothes, involves a long, enduring lie to yourself when you are fat. Hunger Roxane Gay Memoir is one of my favorite genres, because when I read memoirs, I get to read about the author’s life and experiences, which may be vastly different from mine. Hunger builds on Gay’s writing about feminism, women’s bodies, and rape culture to unflinchingly tackle personal experiences.
As a member of the “Lane Bryant Fat” body size, I see her points regarding body positivity, and how part of that is acknowledging that not everyone is ready to love the skin they’re in. Everything from Oprah and Weight Watchers to being challenged by skinny women at the gym is pulled through her particular lens, and there are things to be said out of both of them. Gay touches on so many topics through the lens of a fat woman of color.