BOOK REVIEW
HUNGER; A MEMOIR OF (MY) BODY Review by Ursula Arens Writer; Nutrition & Dietetics Ursula has a degree in dietetics, and currently works as a freelance nutrition writer. She has been a columnist on nutrition for more than 30 years.
AUTHOR: ROXANE GAY PUBLISHER: CORSAIR (LITTLE BROWN BOOK GROUP), 2017 ISBN-13: 978-1472151117 (PAPERBACK) PRICE: £13.99
“No matter where I am, I wonder about where I stand and how I look. I think, I am the fattest person in this apartment building. I am the fattest person at this university. I am the fattest person in this airport. I am the fattest person in this city . . . This is a constant, destructive refrain and I cannot escape it.” Yes, Roxane Gay is fat (her choice of descriptor). Her heaviest weight was 577 pounds (262kg) and, at over six feet tall, she is a very big woman in every way. She does not reveal her current weight, but she is still fat, and this memoir of her life and her fatness is not a before-andafter description of changed weight. Yet so much in this book is about change. It is about the how and why a slim girl from a family and slim and healthy parents and siblings, became so obese. And how living with obesity changes you as a result of the constant reaction of others. And how as you become older and wiser, you come to understand that your very fat body reflects many things about your life, other than just being the visible marker of many years of excess food consumption. Roxane Gay’s book is stunning, written with astonishingly intimate revelation of what it is like to be so obese. There are many obese people who have described their lives, but perhaps few can match the brilliance of this very articulate and intelligent woman. As a writer, professor, columnist, author, speaker etc, she is someone who is paid to think about things and write about them. Having written many fiction and non-fiction articles and books, it was time to face this biggest issue in her life; her weight.
The trigger of trying to escape from her vulnerable body, was brutal gangrape at the age of 12. Committed by fellow school pupils from nice homes and from nice families. Becoming large and fat was the escape from having been abused as someone who was small and vulnerable. The top veneer of text is a description of her life. She did well in school and college, but escaped normality with a few years of reckless life including painful noncontact with her family. But she returned to education, qualified and became an academic and writer. Including many years as a mentor to engineering students on how to most clearly and correctly communicate highly technical engineering concepts to decision-makers and funders. This is where she is now: someone with a PhD who guides college students on creative writing and is a successful author and regular contributor of opinion to many national US publications. But the body of the book is about her body. It may be lumpen, but her descriptions about obesity are delicate, finely-woven text that share deep insights on her condition, and the reactions of the world to fatness. Of course, she knows all about diets and dieting and she has tried the A to Z of methods to eat less. Perhaps some of the
www.NHDmag.com December 2017/January 2018 - Issue 130
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