Difficult Women by Roxane GayMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
True confession - I haven't read any Roxane Gay, but I have heard a lot about her work. It's not like I've avoided her writing, just haven't had access to it. So when Netgalley had her latest collection 'Difficult Women' up for grabs, I grabbed with both hands.
Admittedly, between reading the blurb of the book and reading the actual book, several months went by, so the first of the stories was not what I expected, and neither were the rest. The collection didn't quite fit the book's title of Difficult Women, nor did it comply with the dedication at the start asking said difficult women to celebrate their nature.
When I picked up this book, I expected to be faced with a bunch of normal women whose very normality would, and is, considered 'difficult' by society. I was looking forward to reading about unconventional women, funny women, blase women, happy women, women comfortable with their non-Hollywood shape, colour, orientation, tastes and hobbies, women who love power, women who hate it, women who don't want families, women who aren't considered 'women' (because society), women who love being themselves; in other words, I was looking forward to reading about real people, with relatable stories.
What we get however is the female version of All That Man Is - a collection of disjointed stories which centre around female characters and ALL of these stories are focused on sex. Like, I mean, ALL OF THEM! There's not a single story about a woman who's had a bad day at her stupid corporate job; none where she's having an existential crisis because life sucks; none where she's healthily coping with depression, or not so healthily; none where's she's transgender; none where they're genderqueer/ genderfluid... It's a long line of skinny, conventionally-shaped women suffering through bad relationships/ stuck in the sex industry/ dealing with bad sex/ have sucky husbands who don't care what they want/ fat-shaming other women/ not having a ruddy spine to do something about their lives. The stories end abruptly, with no closure, no growth, no reason for being.
The bright sparks are the ones where the author engages with difficult subjects, but none of these moments justify the book's title. These aren't difficult women - they're women who have gone, or go through difficult situations. Most of them are exactly the kind of women we are used to seeing and reading in art, books and on screen. The title is a misnomer, a red herring and the stories are an insult to regular women's stories. We are bombarded by a series of cliches and cliched characters and cliched situations. Maybe when each of these stories first appeared they were novel and revolutionary, but the collection embodies none of that novelty today. One can't identify with any of the characters; some of their circumstances maybe, but their actions? Nope, not one bit.
The one thing that I found pleasantly surprising was the celebration of sibling relationships. There are at least three stories with twins, and other stories also emphasise the bond between siblings. Were these celebrations included in better, more grounded stories I would probably have championed them; but they are not.
This was an uncorrected proof, so chances are things may change and the stories may get swapped around. I did find that stories similar in theme were sequentially placed which makes the reader bored. But when the majority of the stories have the same stock characters: perfectly-shaped (because, of course) browbeaten/put upon/cheated on wife/sex worker who can't or won't leave her bad situation + realistically out-of-shape (because, of course) cheating/violent husband/male authority figure, no amount of swapping places is going to dull the fatigue.
I Will Follow You - the first of the stories, isn't about difficult women, it's about two young sisters who've gone through hell and have come out of it still holding onto their relationship with each other. It's quite beautiful when it's concentrating on how much these two girls support each other, but it doesn't tackle the central issue head on, which is at once a relief and a let down.
Water, All Its Weight - I didn't get it. There's a water metaphor that continues through the story but it makes no sense. It's a more hopeful story, and mercifully short, but it's allegorical attempts seem to have failed.
The Mark of Cain - A story featuring twins. Twin men who definitely love each other greatly, but constantly attempt 'The Prestige'-esque switcheroo acts in their daily lives. It's a weird story that would have been readable if the central female protagonist wasn't so feeble.
Difficult Women - A commentary on different categories women are placed into, but again, these are not women in charge of their lives and bodies and thoughts. They are part of the system and don't seem to get out of it.
Florida - Mostly forgettable, though I didn't mind the character of Marcy, whose husband has been transferred to Florida and she's trying to fit into this weird world. The ending of Marcy's segment was one of the more relatable and real ones in the entire book.
The others however are cardboard cutouts of every cliche in the universe. The fat-shaming in the middle is gross and really put me off. I don't get why Gay didn't try and write a commentary on people's poor sizism attitudes. It's really off-putting.
La Negra Blanca - Story of a stripper trying to make it through college and a dude who is gross. Really daft and unoriginal in 2016 - maybe it was novelty when it was first published, but jeez, what tedious stuff.
Baby Arm - Another one I didn't understand. Something about mannequins and fibreglass body parts. Just... didn't understand the whole point of it.
North Country - I'm struggling to remember what this one was even about. It's a continuing theme of a perfect woman who is highly sought after, she's been wronged/ is wronged by some ghastly looking bloke. That's all I recall.
How - Also set in the North Country, this one also features twins. And an LGBT love story, of sorts. It's a bit similar to Eileen, less dark, and less gross, but just as annoying.
Requiem for a Glass Heart - Another one of those allegorical ones which is basically about a man cheating on his wife. Pretty much all the stories feature such a man.
In the Event of My Father's Death - Another story of a horrible man, his daughter suffering through his horribleness, his wife putting up with his adultery and a shoehorned lesbian storyline because why not!
Break All the Way Down - What's essentially a good premise about the loss of a child is shrouded by the protagonist's crazy behaviour. People do strange things when depressed or in pain, but this story just... I think I'm just being harsh, but honestly this story's protagonist just didn't make sense to me.
Bad Priest - Title sums it up; nothing more than a salacious love affair sensationalised for no particular reason.
Open Marriage - Short, concise and pithy. It's says what's on the tin and it's kinda good.
A Pat - Kind of weird as the protagonist takes her mother's advice about being nice to the disenfranchised to a whole new weird level. Say what?
Best Features - It's about a fat woman and the story isn't very nice to her. I thought much of the first paragraph was quite apt, but it was ruined by the rest of the story. *Ugly cries*
Bone Density - More cheating husbands. It was really beginning to get on my nerves by this point. There's even a point where the protagonist decries what a cliche she lives in - it's like the author is trying to say something to us.
I Am a Knife - I did not get this. I understood the general gist of the story but not the refrain about being a knife or a gun. Some of the events are fantastical but I don't know what or if they allude to anything real. So weird.
The Sacrifice of Darkness - Another fantastical story which would have made for an interesting read but I think I was so fatigued by the stories before I couldn't care about it. There are some allusions to real world economics and power politics and it's not the worst story but just a bit lost in the miasma before and after it.
Noble Things - I sleep-read this and I feel guilty for doing that. It's really unfair to the story but it didn't interest me at all so I skimmed a little too quickly to form an opinion of it.
Strange Gods - Completes the cycle of a hard-hitting story where a very real horror strikes our protagonist. You finish the story wondering why the hell everyone involved didn't tackle the situation differently, but that's real life. I do wish the author had not padded up the story with a lot of other junk, it could have stood on its own just with the one horrifying incident, remembered in hindsight from a better place.
I think that the overwhelming negativity in this book doesn't help any cause. And the fact that the title refers to these women, all of whom are grave sufferers of their circumstances, as Difficult, is unjust to not only those who suffer because of their circumstances but also to people who are considered difficult because they don't fit the bill. There also isn't much variety in the women characters in the book (as mentioned, nearly all the central female characters are Hollywood ideals, while the men are just normally shaped, or out-of-shape), a surprising fact as I'm sure the author often confronts intersectional feminism in her work. I don't mean that some of the characters aren't of different races, I mean that they aren't required to confront their race because their other attributes trump that aspect in these stories.
I was really disappointed in this collection. It's certainly not worth a read, not in one go anyway. It's too samey and tedious. The cliches are grating. The topic of Difficult Women deserves better.
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