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Having studied literature since I was 17, I was under the impression that I was immune to this pitfall. This is evidenced by our interest in finding the biographical roots of the lover figure in so many works of art, from Catullus’ love poetry to Taylor Swift’s songs. It is layered and repetitive, sometimes visiting the same trauma or relationships or social structures multiple times to fully realize myself in them.Content warning: This article contains mentions of sexual violence.Īudiences have always had an ever-present tendency to explain a work of art by investigating the life of its author. I cannot and will not speak for Gay’s experience, so I am careful to say that the spirographic narrative resonated for me because it felt like my own journey of reckoning with my body and its place in this world. One point in the constellation connects to and overlaps another point. All of our constellations are tangled, not clean or discrete. There’s something in Hunger’s constellation about distance–physical distance in going to boarding school, college, Arizona, Michigan, as well as the distance afforded by the internet. The much-discussed rape is in the constellation, connected by threads of sour beer smells and physical abuse through adulthood.
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In Hunger, I see the constellation around Gay’s body: her parents enduring love is a beacon connected with threads of the gallstone incident at boarding school, their imposition of diets and weight loss camps, and showing up at plays and readings. The lines are sometimes long and meandering, and in other cases they are short and direct. The first time I read the book (6 hours, nearly uninterrupted, devouring from start to finish), I fell in love with the narrative arc that reminded me of a spirograph in the way that the story loops around its central theme, Gay’s body, drawing threads between those specific events and experiences. A few interviews acknowledge that this is a non-linear text, or that the chapters are numerous and occassionally very short. What is often less discussed is the form of the book, which is exquisite in itself. Much has been asked and written about the content of the memoir, the specific events and experiences that shaped Gay’s body and vice versa. I try to remember that, because I feel deeply that fans demand too much of our heroines, blurring a line between empathetic appreciation and a demanding usurpation of their life’s experiences.
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Breathtaking in the most literal sense, and true not in the sense that something is also my experience, but true in the sense that the prose is alive and unfolds around me in a way that is utterly consuming and compelling. I find Gay’s writing breathtaking and deeply true, and I won’t explain or qualify either of these in this post, except to say that I do not know any other words to describe my favorite pieces of writing. There is no writer who creates prose so exacting or beautiful, whether she writes about Scrabble or Sandra Bland, whether it is fiction or nonfiction. I start with this declaration just to let you know this is not a review or a critique, but an appreciation of a my favorite writer on a subject that is deeply personal.