11 Roxane Gay Essays and Stori You Need to Read Right Away

Contents:

• WHAT TO READ IF YOU HAVEN'T YET READ ROXANE GAY
• ROXANE GAY
• BE BIGGER, FIGHT HARR: ROXANE GAY ON A LIFETIME OF 'HUNGER'
• ROXANE GAY ON THE TRMA AND TRIUMPH OF THE HAIAN DIASPORA

WHAT TO READ IF YOU HAVEN'T YET READ ROXANE GAY

This summer has been the summer of Roxane Gay, and the world is the better for . As Gay told The Great Disntent, she started to publish her work "very refully" lerary journals the late '90s. And if all the chatter mak you want to dive to Gay's work, here are some fantastic says and stori by the wrer you n read now, for ee, to nvce you why you should be a Roxane Gay fangirl, Magaze: "Motherfuckers"A brief and quietly vastatg story about a kid named Gérard who mov to Ameri om Hai.

Gay, who has Haian parents and grew up Nebraska “raised as a Haian-Amerin, ” imbu the short scen wh a potent mix of sendhand and firsthand sentence: “'Je te tte, ' he says. ”BuzzFeed: "Not Here to Make Friends"The tle is a monly tmpeted battle cry for female realy petors, whether they’re fightg for a bachelor or a molg ntract, but Gay to ame her wish for more unlikeable female characters lerature.

"xoJane: "My Body is Wildly Undiscipled and I Deny Myself Nearly Everythg I Dire"In the aftermath of this year’s Biggt Loser fale, which a nttant lost what many nsired to be an unhealthy amount of weight, Gay nsired her own relatnship to her body. ” She ticks off a list of ways she tri to make her “wildly undiscipled” body more acceptable — by wearg dark cloth, by not eatg junk food public, and by nyg herself over and over problem of body image Ameri is real, and Gay is not aaid to reveal the parts of herself that don’t f to the typil female weight loss narrative of privatn → thns → happs. ”New York Magaze: "The 10 Bt Books About Morn Virgs"Ask a normal person for a list of book remendatns, and you’ll (probably) get one, but ask Gay for a list of book remendatns and she’ll give you a genre-hoppg digt of lerature that registers pretty much across the board on the high-low culture matrix.

ROXANE GAY

” A ton of those piec me out after he scribed g Twter as “like wrg a novel whout the letter P, ” and all of them said he was out of touch, a lame du who jt didn’t get , yadda yadda Here To BuyWhat set Gay’s piece apart was that she criqued Franzen for ignorg somethg important — wrers who aren’t as succsful as Franzen need Twter to promote their books, munite wh their fellow thors, and build a lerary work. Gay’s bt advice about social media is to chill the F out.

“Do somethg where you are willg to show that you give a damn, however you terpret givg a damn, ” Gay wr. '”The Hairp: "Adventur wh UPS Man"Those who follow Gay on Twter will know that she has an ongog flirtatn wh her UPS Man (whom she has sce moved away om — oh, the humany!

” Gay bemoans the lack of real, reprentative exampl of young adult women we have on televisn and the movi, referencg the new-at-the-time first season of Girls.

BE BIGGER, FIGHT HARR: ROXANE GAY ON A LIFETIME OF 'HUNGER'

Acrdg to Gay, the problem is not that Girls is a show ma by and about privileged whe people — the problem is that there are not enough other shows creatg stori that ls privileged and ls whe women n relate Here To WatchKey sentence: “Every girl or once-was-girl has a show that would be bt for her.

”Kill Author: "Important Thgs to Know About Career Girls"Gay’s femism is clearly legible her nonfictn, but her fictn bears , too, though sometim subtler ways. The now-funct journal Kill Author published Gay’s story s send issue, and reads like eher a cryptic third-person diary, an aspiratnal stctnal manual, or not om a spy, pendg on who you thk is sentence: “She tak dictatn and mak note not of what he says, but rather what she thks. ”Frigg Magaze: "Law & Orr: The Complete Seri"Gay sps her love for Law & Orr — ”the exquise dramas of ()jtice” — to a agmented, hntg seri of vigt.

ROXANE GAY ON THE TRMA AND TRIUMPH OF THE HAIAN DIASPORA

Roxane Gay is the gold standard, and she’s takg along for the ri. We should all be such bad rgay/Twter; Trae Patton/NBC; HBO; NBC.

Roxane Gay, Tracy Lynne Oliver, and Rebec Kirby adapt Gay’s New York Tim btsellg short story “We Are the Sacrifice of Darkns” as a full-length graphic novel, expandg an unfettable world where a tragic event forever bath the world darkns. "The Mark of Ca" is om DIFFICULT WOMEN © 2017 by Roxane Gay; reprted wh the permissn of the publisher, Grove Prs, an imprt of Grove Atlantic, Inc. At least one reviewer here nmns a paragraph edor Roxane Gay’s Introductn by llg a polil “tira.

Of urse, opns vary, and everyone is entled to theirs—cludg Roxane Gay. In fact, sce edors are paid to have and exercise opns, even if Gay’s paragraph really were a “tira, ” she had a right and even a duty to exprs herself.

But I don’t want to dwell on that, bee the real problem here is larger: reviewers seekg to vilify Gay are also attemptg to vilify dozens of other people, if not an entire artistic and tellectual muny. They are g both Gay, and this llectn, as “straw dogs” a culture prcipal allegatn most of the negative reviews is this three-parter: (1) not one of the twenty stori Gay selected for this llectn has any lerary mer at all; (2) therefore Gay nnot have chosen the stori for their lerary mers; and, (3) she therefore n only have chosen them based on her polil bias. None of that bears scty, first part of —the part about lerary mer—is easily disproven: ’s a given that each of the stori first appeared one of our most prtig lerary magaz, which obvly means that all twenty were first regnized for their lerary excellence by edors other than Gay.

The stori were only available for Gay to select for this llectn bee each had already been very favorably judged by others who are, prumably, known and rpected both lerary and amic circl. I mean that the negative ratgs seem to be based on polil bias alone, which if I’m mistaken means that the negative reviewers are dog exactly the same thg that they acce Gay of havg done: judgg the twenty stori based, not on their lerary mers, but only on the basis of polil bias. I’ll let you ci for yourself if that mak the negativ reviewers here hypocr, not ; eher the fact remas that the nay-sayers fail— fact don’t even try—to prove that the stori lack lerary mer; and if we therefore agree wh those who believe that the stori do have lerary mer, we mt reject as absurd the ntentn that Gay selected them for this llectn spe a lack of lerary mer.

I love Roxane Gay's wrg but she is fely on the darker si too, and the stori were pletely her wheelhoe - the selectns ma plete sense to me. Y, as other ctomers have poted out, Roxane Gay's pot of view is reflected her choice of stori, but I feel strongly that this *adds* a dimensn, not tracts or subtracts! Then Junot Diaz 2017 and Roxane Gay 2018 expand the diversy of this seri and opened to new thors, characters, them, backgrounds, experienc.

Reviewed the Uned Stat on March 29, 2019Roxane Gay's selectns are knockg me flat. Thank you, Roxane Gay. Reviewed the Uned Stat on January 5, 2019I adored this llectn and am grateful for the experience crafted om Roxane Gay’s pot of view.