WRITTEN ON THE BODY

Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (New York: Harper, 2017) ("What you need to know is that my life is split in two, cleaved not so nearly. There is the before and the after. Before I gained weight. After I gained weight. Before I was raped. After I was raped." Id. at 14. "This is the memoir of my body. My body was broken. I was broken. I did not know how to put myself back together. I was splintered. A part of me was dead. A part of me was mute and would stay that way for many years. "I was hollowed out. I was determined to fill the void, and food was what I used to build a shield around what little was left of me. I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe.  I buried the girl I had been because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere, She is still small and scared and ashamed, and perhaps I am writing my way back to her, trying to tell her everything she needs other." Id. at 21.).