Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body is a memoir by Roxane Gay, published on June 13, , by HarperCollins in New York, New York. Gay has described Hunger as being "by far the hardest book I've ever had to write." [1] The parentheses that encompass the word "my" in the title signifies the physical barrier of weight-gain that Gay has built for herself in response to her emotional trauma, and.