And this is a radical move a move that I wish more women writers would make a move I believe will let other women first feel OK with feeling insecure, and then feel like they no longer need to be insecure at all. The problem of body image in America is real, and Gay is not afraid to reveal the parts of herself that don’t fit into the typical female weight loss narrative of deprivation → thinness → happiness.
The Biggest Loser “is a show about unruly bodies that must be disciplined by any means necessary,” she writes, “and through that discipline, the obese might become more acceptable members of society.” She ticks off a list of ways she tries to make her “wildly undisciplined” body more acceptable - by wearing dark clothes, by not eating junk food in public, and by denying herself over and over again. In the aftermath of this year’s Biggest Loser finale, in which a contestant lost what many considered to be an unhealthy amount of weight, Gay considered her own relationship to her body. Key sentence: "I want characters to do the things I am afraid to do for fear of making myself more unlikable than I may already be." xoJane: "My Body is Wildly Undisciplined and I Deny Myself Nearly Everything I Desire" Essential reading for anyone who wonders why Walter White gets all the love and Skyler White gets the Internet’s ire. Not so for female characters, who, from Nellie Olson to Countess Olenska, are often judged as if they are competing for Miss Congeniality rather than existing as complex, human characters. Published six months after author Claire Messud scoffed at an interview question about the likability of her latest novel’s female protagonist - " For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that?" Messud had bitten back - "Not Here to Make Friends” puts forth the claim that when male literary characters are dark, disturbing, moody, volatile, just plain cranky or otherwise psychopathic, they are still validated as “ultimately compelling.”
The title is a commonly trumpeted battle cry for female reality competitors, whether they’re fighting for a bachelor or a modeling contract, but Gay uses it to frame her wish for more unlikeable female characters in literature. She doesn’t speak French.” BuzzFeed: "Not Here to Make Friends" Gay, who has Haitian parents and grew up in Nebraska “raised as a Haitian-American,” imbues the short scenes with a potent mix of secondhand and firsthand embarrassment. Gérard receives a nickname from his fellow classmates, and it takes a little while to sink in, but once it does, you’ll understand - and maybe even instinctively feel - the humiliation that Americans can inflict on immigrants. And if all the chatter makes you want to dive into Gay's work, here are some fantastic essays and stories by the writer you can read now, for free, to convince you why you should be a Roxane Gay fangirl, too.Ī brief and quietly devastating story about a kid named Gérard who moves to America from Haiti. For those who've followed her through Twitter and Tumblr - digital treasure troves where she'll share lyrical spare thoughts, eviscerate racist Best Buy employees, or just narrate a Barefoot Contessa episode - the publication of both of her books is cause for massive celebration.īut don't listen to me - listen to absolutely everyone talking about her, aka the entire Internet.
As Gay told The Great Discontent, she started to publish her work "very carefully" in literary journals in the late '90s. Her first novel, An Untamed State, was published by Grove Atlantic in May, and her essay collection Bad Feminist has just been released by Harper Perennial (it happens to be our August Book of the Month, by the way), and they are both exceeding every ridiculously high expectation set for them.īut what may seem like overnight success is actually the product of decades of writing. This summer has been the summer of Roxane Gay, and the world is the better for it.