This book by Roxane Gay got a lot of buzz when it first came out, and I had friends who read and enjoyed it, but it took me a while to read it for myself. I finally got the audiobook from my library, which was a good move because Gay narrates it herself and does a phenomenal job.
It’s no secret that Gay is dangerously overweight and this book talks about why that is and what it feels like to inhabit a black, female “undisciplined body” in America today. It starts with a story about going with her father to a clinic that performs gastric bypass surgery. They got the informational talk and the pamphlets and Gay observed the other potential patients in the room with her, including a mildly overweight woman who was there with her husband.
Gay goes on to discuss how women in particular are expected to look a certain way and those who don’t live up to expectations are punished and looked down on by society as a whole. Hence Gay’s term for her “undisciplined body,” which I love because it refers to society’s implication that she should have the self-discipline to refrain from eating foods that make her fat. Apparently the self-discipline required to get multiple degrees and publish several books while holding down a day job doesn’t count.
Self-discipline has nothing to do with it. Self-loathing does. As a young girl, she allowed herself to be used by an older boy who clearly had no respect for her. In hindsight, she doesn’t know why she allowed this, but we all do stupid things when we’re young, especially when we think we’re in love.
This boy (she never gives his name) led her into the woods one day where he and his friends gang raped her. Gay’s response was to eat, using her fat as a shield against further attacks.
But living in that kind of body attracts other kinds of attacks from everyone in her life, including her own family, who couldn’t understand why she was suddenly gaining so much weight (she never told them about the incident in the woods). Those other kinds of attacks are really what this book is about, as well as the inherent sexism at the root of it all.
She also discusses other self-destructive behaviors she exhibited in her youth, such as discovering internet chat rooms and leaving college to meet up with someone she met online, then spent several months working odd jobs and living in poverty before finally giving in and calling her parents.
This wasn’t always an easy or enjoyable read, but it is a really good book, especially if you listen to the audiobook. It’s a look into what it’s like to live in a black, female, “undisciplined body” in America today and I found it eye opening and very well written. I cannot recommend it enough.
What did you guys read/listen to this week? Any other tough reads that were totally worth it?