Everything was slick, expensive wood, marble. In the clinic, the air was frigid and antiseptic. Outside, it was hot and muggy and lushly green. My father went with me to Cleveland Clinic. I don’t know how I let things get so out of control, but I do. I learned of the number at a Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Florida.
That is a staggering number, one I can hardly believe, but at one point, that was the truth of my body. To tell you the story of my body, do I tell you how much I weighed at my heaviest? Do I tell you that number, the shameful truth of it always strangling me? Do I tell you I know I should not consider the truth of my body shameful? Or do I just tell you the truth while holding my breath and awaiting your judgment?Īt my heaviest, I weighed 577 pounds at six feet, three inches tall. This is a book about learning, however slowly, to allow myself to be seen and understood. This is a book about my body, about my hunger, and ultimately, this is a book about disappearing and being lost and wanting so very much, wanting to be seen and understood. This is not a story of triumph, but this is a story that demands to be told and deserves to be heard. People see bodies like mine and make their assumptions. This is a memoir of (my) body because, more often than not, stories of bodies like mine are ignored or dismissed or derided. These are the ugliest, weakest, barest parts of me. Determination, though, has not gotten me very far. I am determined to be more than my body-what my body has endured, what my body has become. I am in search of that kind of strength and willpower. I wish I had the kind of strength and willpower to tell you a triumphant story. I’ve been forced to look at my guiltiest secrets. And what could be easier to write about than the body I have lived in for more than forty years? But I soon realized I was not only writing a memoir of my body I was forcing myself to look at what my body has endured, the weight I gained, and how hard it has been to both live with and lose that weight. When I set out to write Hunger, I was certain the words would come easily, the way they usually do. Instead, I have written this book, which has been the most difficult writing experience of my life, one far more challenging than I could have ever imagined.
I wish I could write a book about being at peace and loving myself wholly, at any size.
I wish, so very much, that I could write a book about triumphant weight loss and how I learned how to live more effectively with my demons. I don’t have any powerful insight into what it takes to overcome an unruly body and unruly appetites. This is not a book that will offer motivation.
There will be no picture of a thin version of me, my slender body emblazoned across this book’s cover, with me standing in one leg of my former, fatter self’s jeans. The story of my body is not a story of triumph. Here I offer mine with a memoir of my body and my hunger. With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved-in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.Įvery body has a story and a history. In Hunger, she explores her past-including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life-and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself. 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 her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe.” I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. “I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. From the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist: a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.