Fun
Tell Me I’m Fat
Dear Ann,
Through Twitter, I’ve become an admirer of Roxane Gay. I like how she tweets. She has the ability to dismiss nonsense without resort to personal insult.
Gay is an English professor and bestselling author—Bad Feminist (2014) and Difficult Women (2017)—but I had not read any of her books until very recently.
I’m about halfway through Gay’s latest book, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. As a memoir of someone who has been hundreds of pounds overweight, who navigates the world in a body that often gets in her way and attracts unwanted attention, it’s searing, insightful, devastating, and hopeful. The hopefulness comes from Gay’s humor and generosity, and her clear-eyed willingness to examine any fact, to keep searching for the truth of her life, and to hold seemingly contradictory viewpoints such as loving her body as it is, and also wanting to be smaller, more physically comfortable, healthier, and yes: not cruelly mocked.
Gay is everywhere right now, and she’s as compelling as a speaker as she is as a writer. Here are some places to to hear her.
Fresh Air, with Terry Gross: Be Bigger, Fight Harder: Roxane Gay on a Lifetime of “Hunger”
This American Life, Episode 589: Tell Me I’m Fat. (Gay is in Act Three in this program, recorded last year, before Hunger was published.)
Sooo Many White Guys (with Phoebe Robinson of Two Dope Queens). (Warning: it takes a while to get to the Roxane Gay part, but it’s fun.)
As I listened, I found myself saying amen a lot. I also found myself questioning long-held beliefs and listening to my own inner dissonances.
Edited to add: Thanks to reader suggestions, here is more Roxane Gay. (I told you she’s everywhere.)
Another Round podcast, Episode 13.
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
If you are a woman with a body, pick up your knitting and have a listen.
Love,
Kay
Amen
She was also on The Daily Show last week. I knit to TDS every day. I thought I could never get used to the absence of John Stewart, but Trevor Noah has carved his own remarkable niche. Check it out.
I saw it! I loved it and meant to include here and now I’ll go get it. Thanks, Deepa.
I had already planned on knitting and listening to her latest book this weekend. Then, I will find her other books and listen/read them too. Ms. Gay’s writing is superb.
She was also on a live-taping of the podcast Another Round, and the entire episode (#13, I believe) is *hilarious* and great for knitting to.
Oh good – I heard part of an interview on the radio when I was driving to an apptmt the other day, and made a mental note to look for online interviews. Now I don’t even have to look! #moreknittingtime
I really enjoyed her recent interview with Terry Gross on NPR. Made me want to read something by her.
I have a sister-in-law (my age) who has suffered with extreme obesity since she was a teenager. She lost over a hundred pounds a few years ago and has managed to keep most of it off, but not without a constant struggle, while also having to deal with the toll it took on her body. And I well remember the trauma she went through with flying, restaurant seating, movie theaters …. some of which Gay illuminates so well.