Her meditations on her childhood introduce the traumatic gang rape she experienced at age 12, the event to which she traces the beginning of her struggles with eating and weight gain. She notes that her family typically ate healthy, well-balanced, Haitian-inspired meals and that her parents frowned upon overindulgence. She was pressured to do well in school – and always did – and to live a life of modesty and moderation. She notes that she is the childhood of Haitian-American immigrants who maintained a relatively strict watch over their children. Next, Gay moves on to discussing her childhood. She ultimately decides against the procedure, but remarks that the experience of being briefed on the grotesque operation left her fearful and ashamed of her body. Her first anecdote is about sitting in the waiting room at a clinic with other potential candidates for a gastric bypass procedure. Rather, she intends simply to tell “the story of my body” (4), which includes everything from eating and dieting to sex and sexuality. Gay begins her memoir by asserting that the memoir is not a triumphant one or a story about weight loss.
The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body.
