Struggles with weight and her history with sexual violence aside, Gay makes one thing clear: she has a deep love for her family. Despite the terrible, hideous things that happened to Gay, her family kept her grounded and fought for her-even when she failed to recognize it. Gay believes “everything good and strong about me starts with my parents, absolutely everything.” After enduring such trauma as a 12-year-old she could no longer hide and pretend to be the “good Catholic daughter” her parents had raised. She ran away from her family halfway through her undergraduate degree to live in Arizona with a man she met online, for what she calls her “lost” year. The lack of honesty became distance between Gay and her parents, and this distance was a “haunting, lonely feeling, thinking you don’t belong with the very people who know you in the truest, deepest ways.” When she reunited with her family she was able to take in the “breathtaking spectacle of this family, the beautiful beast we become when we are together.” Still, Gay felt she could not be completely honest with them. For 141 pages I told myself I would not insert myself into this review.
That I would remove myself from the narrative, to ensure it was Gays’ voice I was hearing, not my own. I resonate with her unhappiness with her body.
