Hunger - Roxane Gay (Hardcover)

The popular Tumblr blogger and best-selling author of Bad Feminist explores the devastating act of violence that triggered her personal challenges with food and body image, sharing advice for caring for oneself and eating in healthful and satisfying ways. 100,000 first printing.

<p><strong><em>New York Times</em> bestseller</strong></p><p><strong>National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist</strong></p><p><strong>Lambda Literary Award winner</strong></p><p><strong>A best book of 2017: <em>Time  </em>NPR  <em>People  Elle </em> The Washington <em>Post </em> The Los Angeles <em>Times  </em>The Chicago <em>Tribune  Newsday</em>  <em>St. Louis Post-Dispatch  </em>PopSugar  BookRiot  <em>Library Journal  Booklist  Kirkus Reviews  Shelf Awareness  </em></strong></p><p><em>New York Times</em> 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. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In <em>Hunger,</em> she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life. </p><p>With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. <em>Hunger</em> is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers, and tells a story that hasn’t yet been told but needs to be.  </p>

<p><em>“I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I had been because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my body, one I made but barely recognized or understood but of my own making.</em> <em>I was miserable, but I was safe.” </em></p><p>In this intimate and searing memoir, the <em>New York Times </em>bestselling author Roxane Gay addresses the experience of living in a body that she calls “wildly undisciplined.” She casts an insightful and critical eye over her childhood, teens, and twenties—including the devastating act of violence that was a turning point in her young life—and brings readers intwo the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life. </p><p>With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. <em>Hunger</em> is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers, and it tells a story that hasn’t yet been told but needs to be.  </p>

Gay, Roxane: -

Roxane Gay is the author of the essay collection Bad Feminist, which was a New York Times bestseller; the novel An Untamed State, a finalist for the Dayton Peace Prize; and the short story collections Difficult Women and Ayiti. A contributing opinion writer to the New York Times, she has also written for Time, McSweeney's, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, Bookforum, and Salon. Her fiction has also been selected for The Best American Short Stories 2012, The Best American Mystery Stories 2014, and other anthologies. She is the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel. She lives in Lafayette, Indiana, and sometimes Los Angeles.

"Wrenching, deeply moving. . . a memoir that's so brave, so raw, it feels as if [Gay]'s entrusting you with her soul."--Seattle Times "This raw and graceful memoir digs deeply into what it means to be comfortable in one's body. Gay denies that hers is a story of "triumph," but readers will be hard pressed to find a better word."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Displays bravery, resilience, and naked honesty from the first to last page. . . . Stunning . . . essential reading."--Library Journal (starred review) "A heart-rending debut memoir from the outspoken feminist and essayist. . . . An intense, unsparingly honest portrait of childhood crisis and its enduring aftermath."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "This is the book to read this summer . . . she's such a compelling mind . . . . Anyone who has a body should read this book."--Isaac Fitzgerald on the Today show "The book's short, sharp chapters come alive in vivid personal anecdotes. . . . And on nearly every page, Gay's raw, powerful prose plants a flag, facing down decades of shame and self-loathing by reclaiming the body she never should have had to lose."--Entertainment Weekly "Searing, smart, readable. . . . "Hunger," like Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Between the World and Me," interrogates the fortunes of black bodies in public spaces. . . . Nothing seems gratuitous; a lot seems brave. There is an incantatory element of repetition to "Hunger" The very short chapters scallop over the reader like waves."--Newsday "Searing."--Miami Herald "Roxane Gay is the brilliant girl-next-door: your best friend and your sharpest critic. . . . She is by turns provocative, chilling, hilarious; she is also required reading."--People "Luminous. . . . intellectually rigorous and deeply moving."--The New York Times Book Review "It is a deeply honest witness, often heartbreaking, and always breathtaking. . . . Gay is one of our most vital essayists and critics."--Minneapolis Star Tribune "Bracingly vivid. . . . Remarkable. . . . Undestroyed, unruly, unfettered, Ms. Gay, live your life. We are all better for having you do so in the same ferociously honest fashion that you have written this book."--Los Angeles Times "A work of exceptional courage by a writer of exceptional talent."--Shelf Awareness (starred review) "Hunger is Gay at her most lacerating and probing. . . . Anyone familiar with
Gay's books or tweets knows she also wields a dagger-sharp wit."
--Boston Globe "A work of staggering honesty . . . . Poignantly told."--New Republic "Her spare prose, written with a raw grace, heightens the emotional resonance of her story, making each observation sharper, each revelation more riveting. . . . It is a thing of raw beauty."--USA Today "Powerful. . . . fierce. . . . Gay has a vivid, telegraphic writing style, which serves her well. Repetitive and recursive, it propels the reader forward with unstoppable force."--Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers "[Gay is] hilarious. But she also confronts more difficult issues of race, sexual assault, body image, and the immigrant experience. She makes herself vulnerable and it's refreshing."--Tanvi Misra, Atlantic, The Best Book I Read This Year Praise for Bad Feminist: "A strikingly fresh cultural critic."--Ron Charles, Washington Post