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When Oprah brought that sack of fat out, she was in many ways self-flagellating for the audience and apologizing for her fatness. The media treats that as the norm, and that ends up being detrimental to all the other types of bodies in the world. Oftentimes we only see one type of body, which is the very thin body. The media needs to put more bodies in front of people. I think it’s in regards to how they display and discuss fat bodies. I don’t think that ground zero for the media is in regard to food. How do you think the media can find a middle ground that reflects an experience of healthy eating and body positivity? You then juxtapose that with Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa, in which food is celebrated as nourishment. For example, you reference an Oprah episode where she comes on stage with a wheelbarrow of animal fat that represents how much weight she’s lost. You also talk about how figures in popular media like Oprah and Kirstie Alley approach weight loss as a shameful act that they need to repent for. Right now I’m watching The Bachelorette, of course, now that the new season has started.
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I love to go back to my hotel room and watch a pay-per-view movie, because I don’t have time to go to the theater because I’m traveling so much, so one of the best ways to see current movies is on airplanes and in hotel rooms, so I will treat myself to a movie in a hotel room. Now that you’re on tour and you’ve got a packed schedule, what kinds of self care do you find helpful when you’re busy and on the road? You write about self-care and how cooking can be a form of self-care. I was on tour when I wrote most of the book. I don’t really have a formal writing process, so I wrote when I could. The first half of the book is mostly a chronological account of my life, and the second half tends to be more topical. I finally just dove in the beginning and thought, where would I start if I was going to tell the story of my body? I started with my childhood. I procrastinated for a very long time, well past when I was supposed to turn the book in and well past when it was supposed to be originally published. How did you go about tackling this project? Yes, you say on the very first page that writing Hunger has been the most difficult experience of your life.
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How do you anticipate the tour being different from previous tours?Įvery book tour is essentially similar, but when I have to discuss this particular book in public over and over again, it can be challenging and draining. You’re at the beginning of your tour for Hunger, which is arguably your most revealing book. Gay is inviting readers to witness an unflinching self-portrait. The triumph of the book lies in the feat of laying oneself bare. There are no bite-size takeaways or before-and-after pictures, because it’s more complex than that. Gay’s memoir is, instead, “about learning, however slowly, to allow myself to be seen and understood.” No, Hunger is not a self-help book. “The story of my body is not a story of triumph,” Gay says in the second sentence of her book. The book begins as an account of her life, and includes Gay’s trademark commentary on popular culture, such as The Biggest Loser and the Kardashians.įrom the first page, Gay guarantees no simple or happy conclusions about weight loss or moving past trauma. Hunger is a wrenching self-examination in which Gay analyzes her body, and the weight she’s gained in response to her sexual assault trauma. Now, after finishing Hunger, I understand the emotional fortitude necessary to write this book. It was the kind of statement characteristic of Gay’s work: direct, arresting, and unapologetic, the kind of statement that has made her a New York Times bestselling author and cultural icon. I was in that audience that day, and I heard the people around me collectively inhale the simple power of those words.
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It was May of 2016, and Gay was referring to Hunger, her much anticipated memoir. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve had to write, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever written,” Roxane Gay said to a crowd gathered to hear her deliver the PEN World Voices Festival’s Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture. J“t’s frustrating that the expectation is for women to have to apologize for fatness and then do this elaborate weight loss in the public eye.” Roxane Gay on Hunger, Trauma, and the Unruly Body