Various attempts to reverse it, some undertaken willingly, others under parental pressure, never last long, and both the traumatic event and her highly visible response to it overshadow everything else that happens to her. “I fell asleep most nights,” Gay writes, “flush with the joy of knowing I belonged to these people and they belonged to me.” Gay’s tone shifts from a breezy conversational style to something harsher – the book is crammed with agonising ironiesĪfterwards, everything changes: she begins to overeat and her weight gain is swift and dramatic, to her family’s dismay. The brief evocation of her childhood before this point conjures an almost fairytale-like atmosphere of love and optimism, peopled with adoring parents and siblings. Gay blames herself, and her suffering is compounded when the boys report their version of events to their peers at school she keeps hers quiet, unable to say anything about it to her family. The first of these hinges on the horrifying rape visited on her as a 12-year-old by her boyfriend and several of his friends. Hunger comprises at least two stories: a partial but more or less linear telling of Gay’s life so far, and a more halting, spiralling description of her everyday experience as a fat woman. People asking those kinds of questions don’t deserve an answer, and yet here Gay has decided to give them one. No doubt Gay is thoroughly sick of being reduced to her body and of enduring constant inquiries, prejudices and criticism, and she has evidently worked hard to make space for herself to talk and write about other things. Simply leaving the house means navigating a physical and emotional obstacle course. Doctors not only patronise her but routinely refuse her basic care. Shopping for clothes or food, visiting a restaurant or getting on a plane frequently involve a humiliating ordeal.
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