I HAVE GOTTEN backlogged in my blogging--I read this back in January. I'm six or seven books behind, in fact. But school's out (for me), and it's catch-up time.
The crackling prose and maverick attitude of Bad Feminist are abundantly present in this book, but a lot of pain, too--not to mention shame, anger, and other blood-accelerating emotions. Gay is a big person--six foot three and 577 pounds at her biggest, she mentions on p. 6--and Hunger is about how that bigness came about it and why, despite repeated efforts and many exhortations to be smaller, she is still big.
The crucial event occurred in middle school, when Gay was raped by a boyfriend and his buddies. The best way to avoid this kind of male attention, she decided, was to get really, really big, and so she put on 120 pounds in high school alone.
The book proceeds roughly chronologically, through college, grad school, the beginning of a career in teaching and writing, on through Gay becoming famous with Bad Feminist. High levels of accomplishment alternate with fugues and crises of confidence while she learns the hazards and tactics of navigating the world as a really large person for whom relatively ordinary objects--airplane seats, restaurant booths, stairs--can inspire dread. Not to mention being someone nearly everyone feels entitled to sneer at and give advice to.
The book is nonetheless often funny, as when Gay describes how she will often tell herself to eat less and exercise more, "But then I get out of bed." And she does get a breakthrough when a broken ankle and subsequent operation bring home to her how much her friends and loved ones care for her.
She has not forgiven and forgotten (see chapter 84, in which she details how the internet has enabled her to keep tabs on her rapist), and she takes pains to avoid a big swelling major chord ending, but she has certainly moved on, lived her life, made her mark.
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