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SK: In the cases of these characters, it is almost that they’re setting out to rescue these women. It’s the bad men that are the exception and because I tend toward the dark in my fiction, you see more of the exception than the rule. RG: I would like to believe that most people, regardless of gender, are good and kind. How do you think characters like these come to goodness, kindness, patience? On the flip side, there are also decent men in this book, like Alvarez in the same story, or Darryl from “I Will Follow You” or Magnus from “North Country” or Ben in “Break All The Way Down.” But we don’t get much in the way of background for them because it’s not really their story, and yet they are instrumental in creating space for women to heal. I’m thinking in particular of William in “La Negra Blanca,” who obsesses over a woman, Sarah, who he believes is white with a “black girl ass” before eventually raping her, only to realize her mother was black. More: Writing erotica books isn’t all sex and butterflies SK: One of the things I noticed in these stories is that there is a lot of exploration of what makes people, men especially, not so good. Also, I mean, the erotic is always a fun creative space. RG: Sex offers incredible narrative opportunities and so many emotions are tied up in sex. What is it that interests you in writing about sex? Why is it such a crucial part of your stories?
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I’ve read that you’ve got an entire other literary life as an erotica writer, which you can see threads of in this collection. I love the surreal because I am faced with the challenge of making the unbelievable believable.
#AMAZON ROXANE GAY HUNGER HOW TO#
Roxane Gay: It’s gut instinct that helps me determine how to write a story. How do you know when to take a story in the direction of the surreal? What does the surreal help you to better explore? SheKnows: Most of the stories in Difficult Women are pretty straight, but there are also some more fantastical ones, like “Requiem for a Glass Heart” where two characters are made of glass or “Water, All Its Weight” where a woman, Bianca, is followed by a cloud of moisture that rots her surroundings. I asked Gay how she accomplishes such a feat and why she feels compelled to write the stories of these characters’ lives as well as the story of her own. The stories feel so alive, you can almost hear their heartbeat. They could be a co-worker you never got to know beyond coffee talk or a stranger you always see at the grocery store. Gay has also mastered a balance between moving a story forward and making a character real and relatable. While it tackled hard subjects, it did so with a level of empathy, patience and even hope that gave me more faith in human resiliency. Much to my surprise, Difficult Women was an absolute pleasure to read. I wasn’t sure, in an already ugly year, I’d be able to handle it.
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I really wanted to like Difficult Women, but I knew that Gay tackles tough topics like rape, abuse, violence and grief. I’ve often bought short story collections and found their writing magnificent, but somehow put them to the side in favor of something that better grabbed my attention and offered cheerier outlook for the world. If anyone knows how to write, it’s Gay, but I’m also a creative writing major who oversaturated herself in literary works and turned up her nose at pop fiction until, well, I realized I kind of like an easy, entertaining read. When it came across my desk, I was both thrilled and timid. Difficult Women, her latest short story collection, was released in January of this year.