Difficult Women – Roxane Gay

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.

ROXANE GAY

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.

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

” 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. 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.

ROXANE GAY ON THE TRMA AND TRIUMPH OF THE HAIAN DIASPORA

”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 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.