Difficult Women

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 show more 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. show less

I started this right before bed, thinking I'd read a story or two before sleeping. It was about 3:30 AM when I next looked at the clock. The stories were that good.

The stories in this collection were ugly and dark, but also beautifully written and completely compelling. They showed how healing can be a painful process.

While most of the stories were contemporary, there were a few that edged into magical realism, if not outright SF. The one alternate history of a US where the South had seceded after the election of (supposedly) President Obama hit home, given the current political climate. And the very science fiction story of a world in which a coal miner flew to the sun and snuffed it out in order to make himself feel whole was show more beautiful.

A gorgeous collection that made me want to read everything Gay's written. show less

This collection of short fiction demonstrates Roxane Gay's brilliance over and over again. Her women are "difficult" in various ways--some difficult to be with, some difficult for the reader to understand, many just difficult to forget. As with any collection, I liked some of the stories better than others. Most were enjoyable to read even when I thought they ended abruptly, or on a bewildering note. Some were almost too good. One in particular gave me such bad vibes that I knew I did not want to go on with it...did not want to learn what awful thing had happened to the narrator before we met her. I read a couple more stories after that one, but ultimately decided I had spent enough time in this company after reading approximately 3/4 show more of the book. No doubt Gay's intention was often to make the reader uncomfortable. She's very good at it. I exercised my prerogative to leave before things got too dreadful, an option some of her difficult women also found necessary. show less

I started this right before bed, thinking I'd read a story or two before sleeping. It was about 3:30 AM when I next looked at the clock. The stories were that good.

The stories in this collection were ugly and dark, but also beautifully written and completely compelling. They showed how healing can be a painful process.

While most of the stories were contemporary, there were a few that edged into magical realism, if not outright SF. The one alternate history of a US where the South had seceded after the election of (supposedly) President Obama hit home, given the current political climate. And the very science fiction story of a world in which a coal miner flew to the sun and snuffed it out in order to make himself feel whole was show more beautiful.

A gorgeous collection that made me want to read everything Gay's written. show less

Stories about survival; stories we need now more than ever.

(Full disclosure: I received a free ARC for review through Netgalley. Trigger warning for domestic violence, child abuse, and rape.)

"There once was a man. There is always some man."

"You too have always been popular. I have seen the evidence in your childhood bedroom, meticulously preserved by your mother. Even now, you have packs of men following you, willing to make you their strange god. That is the only thing about you that scares me."

“I want a boy who will bring me a baby arm.”

“Honey, you’re not crazy. You’re a woman."

Difficult Women brings together twenty-one short stories by Roxane Gay, all of which have previously been published elsewhere (or multiple show more elsewheres), most in slightly different forms and some under different titles. (I included the TOC at the bottom of this review; alternate titles are listed last, in parentheses.) However, the publications are so varied that it's unlikely that you've seen, read, and/or own them all.

This is actually rather surprising to me, since the stories - published over a span of ~5 years - gel so well together. It really feels like each one was written specifically with this anthology in mind. The collection's namesake, "Difficult Women," perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the whole. Like the short story, this is book about loose women and frigid women; difficult women and crazy women; mothers and wives, daughters and dead girls. Women who have faced the unspeakable - rape and sexual assault; miscarriages or the death of a child; abuse and self-harm; alcoholism and alienation - and come out the other side. Not unscathed, but alive. These are stories of survival.

Usually I find anthologies to be somewhat uneven, but not so here. Every story grabs you by the heart and threatens to squeeze until it pops, right there in your chest cavity. Gay's writing is raw and naked; grim, yet somehow, impossibly, imbued with hope. While some are straight-up contemporary, other tales are a strange, surreal mix of the real and unreal: In "I Am a Knife," a woman fantasizes about cutting her twin's fetus out of her body and transferring it to her own, the way she once did with the heart of a drunk driver who collided with their car, nearly killing her sister.

Even stranger is "The Sacrifice of Darkness," in which the miner Hiram Hightower uses his savings to buy an airship to the sun. Upon approach, he inadvertently sucks up all its light, to fill the gaping hole that loneliness and a life spent in darkness carved into his spirit. His wife and son - and his son's wife and their child - would pay the price for his selfishness. And yet they also hold the promise of a brighter future for all. Therein lies the impossible hope.

I also loved "Noble Things," a dystopia in which a second secession of the South led to the New Civil War. Parker is bound to the South not by his beliefs, but by family: after a career in the US military that included tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran, his father the General led the Southern army to victory. Nevertheless, appalled by the scarcity, poverty, and ignorance in the South, Parker and wife Anna sent their son North, to live with her parents. Will he have the courage to embrace one of his family's convictions and join Anna and "the boy" on the other side of the divide?

As I read through the stories, several common themes began to emerge: many are set in the North Country, against the backdrop of mining; incorporate the death of a child; and/or feature twins. Rape is also a common element, and one that Gay handles with care and nuance. Gay avoids graphic details, instead centering attention on the survivors and their methods of coping with the trauma and navigating this new reality. Given current events - I'm penning this review a mere three days after the 2016 election - these stories are more important, and potentially triggering, than ever.

The anthology opens with "I Will Follow You," a sucker punch to the heart. When Savvie was ten, she was abducted by a pedophile; older sister Carolina, a witness to the crime, threw herself in the van so that her sister wouldn't have to survive it alone. Years later, they are free and financially independent women - who never leave each others' sides. "La Negra Blanca" tackles the fetishization of women of color, misogynoir, white male privilege, and the objectification of sex workers, while "How" is about twins from Michigan who figure out how to escape their broken lives (don't be afraid to leave all your baggage behind, abusive family members included).

The loop is closed with the final story, "Strange Gods," in which a woman who was gang-raped as a child attempts to open herself up to a healthy relationship after years of abusive relationships. The imagery here is especially compelling/horrifying, as she was lured to a deer blind by a boy she considered a friend, hunted like prey, violated, and then splayed open like a slaughtered deer on the exam table. This story in particular should be disseminated to every police department with a rape kit backlog; picture: repeated forced readings, à la A Clockwork Orange.

Difficult Women is a difficult book to read, but one that's vital and necessary and timely in a way that I didn't anticipate when I requested a copy on Netgalley.

 


Table of Contents

I Will Follow You * 1 ("The Weight of Water")
Water, All Its Weight * 23
The Mark of Cain * 29
Difficult Women * 35 ("Important Things")
FLORIDA * 45 ("Group Fitness")
La Negra Blanca * 61
Baby Arm * 77
North Country * 83
How * 101
Requiem for a Glass Heart * 117
In the Event of My Father’s Death * 125
Break All the Way Down * 129
Bad Priest * 149
Open Marriage * 159
A Pat * 161
Best Features * 163
Bone Density * 169
I Am a Knife * 179
The Sacrifice of Darkness * 189
Noble Things * 215
Strange Gods * 235

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 257

CREDITS 259

http://www.easyvegan.info/2017/01/09/difficult-women-by-roxane-gay/ show less

At some point in time in her life, every woman will be called difficult. As we all know, this is a euphemism for being emotional, opinionated, pushy, bitchy, and sometimes just for being alive. In Roxane Gay’s latest collection of short stories, she highlights the many reasons why we may indeed be difficult. These reasons are every bit as emotional, disturbing, and honest as you would think.

Each story is powerful in its own right and demands careful reflection upon finishing it. Some are so upsetting that you cannot move forward with digesting what you just read. However, the collection is so compelling that you find yourself reading the stories one after the other. There is merit in either approach to the book. Both approaches will show more ultimately lead you to the same conclusions about women’s place in society.

In each short story Ms. Gay provides an unflinching look at just a few of the issues women deal with on a daily basis. Even more impressively, she creates characters that are more than just caricatures. You know these women. They are your girlfriends, your sisters, mothers, daughters; they are you. This fact, along with her sensitive, almost poetic, approach to very difficult topics, makes this collection a must-read for feminists.

Ms. Gay reminds all readers that if someone insists on calling us difficult, we are so because of the challenges we face in a male-dominated society. Our unique roles as mothers and caregivers brings its own challenges that men will never understand. Ms. Gay does understand and it shows in every word in each of her short stories. Coming off of the craptastic 2016 and the disturbing revelations the presidential election revealed about society, Difficult Women is an essential read for 2017. show less

Less Difficult Women than Women Making the Best of Bad Situations, Roxane Gay's collection of short stories focuses mainly on relationships between men and women, from abusive or cold to the romantic and committed. Gay also returns to the themes of twins and sisterhood and how women support each other, and of pregnancy and motherhood; always fraught and likely to end in disaster.

Like any collection of short stories, the quality varied from brilliant to acceptable, but despite the way Gay constantly examined similar situations with different variables, the short stories never felt repetitive. They were strongest at their most raw - the stories that opened and closed the book were visceral and I think I'll be living with them for some time.