Hunger by Roxane Gay: The Honesty Undid Me
The Honesty I Did Not Know I Needed to Read
Hunger is Roxane Gay's memoir about her body and about what happened to it and about the ways she learned to survive inside it. It is the most candid book I have read on a subject that most writers approach with protection around themselves and around the reader. Gay does not protect you from the difficulty. She also does not ask you to feel sorry for her, which is its own kind of generosity. The book is short and it does not waste a single sentence on comfort.
Gay does not ask you to understand. She asks you to stay present with her.
"I am not brave. I am just a person who understands what is at stake in telling truth.
"Roxane Gay
Reading Hunger
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This book does not have a resolution or a redemption arc. It is honest about that absence. If you need those things from a memoir, this one will frustrate you.