Gay’s characters, difficult thought they may be, are rendered with a profound sensitivity that affirms their humanity, alongside their wounds and flaws. Gay's "difficult women" are unforgettable' BBC. Roxane Gay’s new book, Difficult Women, is a deeply moving collection of short stories that are by turns tender, heartbreaking, and chilling. 'Gay brings the powerful voice that flows through her work as a novelist and cultural critic to the 21 short stories in her first collection. I decided to give it until 20 and, before I knew where I was, I was 30 into the book and enjoying Gays writing. I almost gave up at 14, having disliked 3 of the first 4 stories.
A black engineer moves to Upper Michigan for a job and faces the malign curiosity of her colleagues and the difficulty of leaving her past behind.įrom a girls' fight club to a wealthy subdivision in Florida where neighbors conform, compete, and spy on each other, Gay delivers a wry, beautiful, haunting vision of modern America. Difficult Women, a collection of 21 stories, some exceedingly short and others almost a novella, is a difficult book to review. A stripper putting herself through college fends off the advances of an overzealous customer. A woman married to a twin pretends not to realize when her husband and his brother impersonate each other.
A pair of sisters, grown now, have been inseparable ever since they were abducted together as children, and must negotiate the elder sister's marriage. The women in these stories live lives of privilege and of poverty, are in marriages both loving and haunted by past crimes or emotional blackmail. What binds Roxane Gay’s 21 short stories in Difficult Women is that they are told with direct, plainspoken intimacy the same voice that makes her personal essays so compulsively. 'Phenomenally powerful and beautifully written' the Guardian
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