The truly gross part of An Untamed State is that it shifts from the present (Mireille held hostage and raped constantly) to the past when she met her future husband. All I could think was Gay wanted to see her readers squirm, because she certainly gives no insight into the human condition. What led me to immediately quit reading was a scene involving breast milk.
The world is full of horrors I can’t imagine, and perhaps reading about them will make me more understanding, I guess? WRONG. I read to 41% because I kept thinking that I shouldn’t turn away from painful things. The rape and sexual assault scenes are graphic, involving sadistic methods designed to break Mireille down and “teach her a lesson” for being so mouthy while she’s held hostage. Similarly, Mireille in An Untamed State is kidnapped and gang raped over and over and over. She is open and frank about it in Hunger. As it becomes clear her father intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents.Įventually, Roxane Gay publicly discussed on her own gang rape when she was a young teen.
Held captive by a man who calls himself The Commander, Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom. The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her father’s Port au Prince estate. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti’s richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale.
Since I stopped reading An Untamed State at 41%, this is going to be a brief review.
While I appreciated Hunger, every other book of hers has felt unfinished ( Ayiti) or been a rambling, diary-like incoherent mess ( Bad Feminist). I am never reading another Roxane Gay book again.