Hunger

Roxane Gay’s memoir is titled Hunger not only as a reference to her eating habits, but her deep yearning for acceptance, love, and healing from the trauma of rape. In her own words:

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 to be seen and understood. This is a book about learning, however slowly, to allow myself to be seen and understood (5).

In Part 2, Gay peruses a family album and describes the changes in her physical appearance and presentation, noting that her younger self (pictured after her rape) looks “hollow” (37). After the assault, she spent the next decades of her life trying to fill this hollow space. She sought comfort in food—but it only served as a temporary distraction. As the years passed, Gay found herself more isolated, first at Exeter and then at Yale. She continued to eat and actively sought community, which she partially found via the Internet. She even left Yale and her family for a year to find fulfillment in a different state. Yet, life in Arizona also left her feeling isolated and used by others.