Sam: Difficult Women

Currently I am reading Difficult Woman by Roxane Gay. As a book bargain shopper, I purchased this novel on Thriftbooks in a bundle while buying books for my other classes. Roxane Gay has blown up over the last few years after the success of her 2nd novel, Bad Feminist, which quickly became a New York Times bestseller and garnered significant praise. After devouring Bad Feminist over the summer, I decided to try out one of her newer releases. 

Difficult Women contains a collection of short stories focusing on women in varying states of their lives who come from a multitude of different backgrounds. The stories span from women who are pinnacles of privilege to women who have gone through sexual assault to those who are in crumbling marriages. 

Somehow, Gay creates unique voices for the women in each chapter. She constructs tangible, realistic worlds within the breadth of a few pages. Her prose is sharp, her stories intriguing, and her characters distinct. Yet, each story is overwhelmingly dismal and I seem to miss the glimpses of humor more prevalent in Bad Feminist. I was hoping for at least one or two stories where sex was not a major theme, and character development would occur (unfortunately, not the case so far). I think I am finding I like Gay more as a cultural critic than a fiction writer. For now, I’ll keep reading.