AMERICAN AUTHORS CHALLENGE---March 2021--ROXANE GAY

In 2014, Roxane Gay had two books published, a collection of essays on multiple subjects called Bad Feminist, and a novel titled An Untamed State, a stark and often brutal story of a woman’s kidnapping while on vacation in Haiti, and its emotional aftermath. Gay herself is of Haitian descent, and her own personal history includes a harrowing episode of sexual abuse when she was just a child. These two highly successful works have been followed by a collection of short fiction, Difficult Women, and a particularly cathartic memoir of her relationship with her own “unruly” body, Hunger, as well as multiple writing and editing projects across several genres. Gay has been a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times for many years.

Gay has discussed the difficulty of achieving an honest portrayal of her character’s ordeal in An Untamed State without what she called “unnecessary flourish”. She had no desire to make rape or other violence “entertaining”. For Gay, writing must be done with compassion and empathy, or there is no value in it. Her topics most often include feminism, gender identity, and racism in American culture.

Bad Feminist has been called subtle and discursive, but the individual essays have also been criticized as lacking in originality, covering familiar ground without adding new insight.

Gay is currently teaching a MasterClass offering on the subject of Writing for Social Change.

In 2019, she began co-hosting a series of podcasts called Hear to Slay with Tressie MacMillan Cottam. She has been on the English faculty of both Purdue and Yale, as well as Eastern Illinois University. She received her own Master’s degree from the University of Nebraska, and a PhD in Rhetoric and Technical Communication from the Michigan Technological University.

I would also mention that she is a great Twitter follow, if anyone here is on there. She's frank and funny and does not suffer fools. If you are more of an Instagrammer, her account there is also great, focused a lot on the cooking and baking she has been doing since the pandemic started.

I've read both Bad Feminist and Hunger and cannot recommend them highly enough. I plan to read her collection of short stories, Difficult Women, for this month.

Linda - one minor point - her novel is titled An Untamed State, not An Unclaimed State.

Yes, she is an amazing essayist. In addition to her twitter, you can maybe find other works of hers online at various websites. Highly recommended.

>2 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie. No wonder the touchstone didn't work! My sources had it right...I just flubbed the transcription. Fixed it.
I'm planning to read Difficult Women also. (Here's where I get to tell you that your touchstone for that title goes to a different work, and Hunger is wrong too!)

>3 reconditereader: - D'oh!

I just finished Difficult Women in February, that is, yesterday. It was an excellent story collection about which I might have more to say after it settles. I moved it ahead so that I could read it during Black History Month (because I decided to read only Black authors in February, I now have to catch up on Canin).

I've also read Hunger, which I agree with >2 katiekrug: Katie is highly recommended.

I've started Difficult Women and have read about half a dozen stories so far. They are very Roxane Gay. Like I could read one without knowing the author and probably know it was her. Her writing is so direct and brutal, with really subtle touches of humor. I'm enjoying the read.

I picked up Difficult Women from the library yesterday. I probably won't start it until tomorrow, though. I look forward to the subtle humor part!

>8 laytonwoman3rd: - So far, the humor is in asides and tossed out lines. Very dry. Definitely not LOL funny :)

She's also written on comics and graphic novels.

I have some of her work, but suspect I won't get to it this month. I still have last month's read in the pile. I'd like a word with the Time Thief please.

Ooh. I have Bad Feminist. This group is a good incentive to get to this book.

Hi - I'm taking the Wildcard and reading a couple of Jacob Appel's books and WILD WOMEN AND THE BLUES instead.

I'm starting Ayiti today.

An Untamed State is currently $1.99 on Kindle.

I'm about halfway through Difficult Women and really enjoying the stories. Some are hard to read, some are funny, but they are all very sharp and well-observed. I love Gay's range.

>16 katiekrug: Good to read your note! I've got the book home from the library and will start it soon. Thanks!

Karen O.

>16 katiekrug: I'm having a similar reaction to these stories...

>15 katiekrug: I'm avoiding buying from Amazon this week and hoping they aren't going to make an offer that it actually hurts to decline.

Ooh. I have Bad Feminist. This group is a good incentive to get to this book. And now I've finished the first essay.

Ayiti was a very quick read for me. Roxane Gay is a gifted writer. The intensity and expression of the authors' words kept me hooked on the book and I could not put it down. Every story is provoking and beautifully crafted. I really appreciated how the book starts with the story describing immigrant's lives in the States. As it continues, Gay carefully describes life in Haiti and all the pain and suffering people deal with on regular basis. The last story is about making the hardest decision in one's life - leaving everything that is important to you (your homeland and your parent) behind and go to a new country.

I'm going to try and read at least a few of the essays in Bad Feminist as I found my copy.

Roxane Gay certainly never writes the same story twice. And it's difficult to predict what her Difficult Women are going to do. I read most of the stories in the collection with that title, but found one of them so intense that I decided not to finish it, and returned the book to the library without reading the last 3, simply because I felt like I had done all I could handle for a while. I may return to it. If it were my own book, I'd have spread the stories that I did read out even more, and eventually would have read them all. She's a wonder.

Cross-posted on my thread.



Difficult Women by Roxane Gay

This collection includes 24 short stories, all of which tackle issues of power, trauma, connection, and pain in one way or another, and sometimes in multiple ways. It's not an easy collection to read, and I was glad to pace myself, reading 3 or 4 stories at a time in between other books. There is a lot of brutality, physical and mental abuse, and rape - almost every story could come with a trigger warning of some kind. Gay is a powerful writer, no more so than in "Strange Gods" which is at least semi-autobiographical (having read her memoir, Hunger, I was familiar with the trauma she underwent as a young adult). But her power comes not just from the topics she addresses, but how she can balance them with humor and tenderness. My favorite story was probably "North Country" which is sad and sometimes angry, but also funny and touching.

Gay is one of my favorite writers, and I am glad to have finally tackled some of her fiction.

4 stars

>24 katiekrug: Katie, thanks for the great review. You put into words exactly how I was feeling about this book, which I literally finished just minutes ago. I am a fan of Roxane Gay, but this collection was very hard to read. But, it is powerful writing, to be sure. I just need to read something "fluffier" next!

Karen O.