“I’m trying to find that balance between saying things that matter, but also being myself,” Gay said. Yet wry humor is often blended into her sharp observations about American culture.
Her writing can be searing and unflinchingly personal, delving into sexual violence (she was the victim of a gang-rape in middle school) and what she considers her inconsistent and messy views about feminism. Gay, a professor of English at Purdue University, will be publishing a memoir next year, “Hunger,” that examines food and body image issues. She addressed some of those anxieties in a 2014 essay, “The Price of Black Ambition.” “When you’re a writer, you always feel pressure behind you, ‘What am I going to do next, and how do I make sure that what I do next is going to be good enough?’ ” “I’m trying to learn how to stay in the moment. “There is that flipside, the high doesn’t last as long,” Gay told host Lois Reitzes.
On “City Lights,” Gay said that while she’s trying to enjoy her achievements, the burden of surpassing her own expectations, as well as those of her readers, can be enormous. Gay will be in conversation Friday with feminist icon Erica Jong in the keynote feature that kicks off the AJC Decatur Book Festival. Last year, her lauded essay collection, “Bad Feminist,” earned Gay even more widespread acclaim and attention. Her rapid rise to fame in the last few years has been dizzying, even by her own estimation.
