Well, after two funny collections about women and their relationships, Roxane Gay’s Difficult Women brought me back to reality with a thud.

There are 21 stories in Difficult Women, and most have themes of violence. The collection opens with the powerful and disturbing I Will Follow You, about two sisters who were abducted, held by their abuser for months, and then released. The impact of this trauma on the rest of their lives is explored by Gay in a delicate but straight-forward way.

I was ten and Caroline was eleven. We begged Mr. Peter for everything – food, fresh air, a moment alone with hot water. We begged him for mercy, to give our bodies a break before they were broken completely. He ignored us. We learned to stop begging. He would, too, or he wouldn’t. It did not matter.

Equally impactful is La Negra Blanca, about a woman working as a stripper to pay her college tuition. One of the regulars at the bar where she works rapes her.

What is notable in both of these horrifying stories, are the moments of tenderness and kindness that come when least expected – the judge in the sisters’ court case who notices their distress and allows them to use her chambers; the sort-of-boyfriend of the stripper who gently washes her hands each night after she counts her tips (greasy one dollar bills).

Some of the stories have a gothic or mythological tone (notably I Am a Knife and The Sacrifice of Darkness), and almost all explored themes of racism, power, and misogyny. Two stories in the collection are about the death of children. Tough reading.

A therapist once told me that with time and distance memories fade. he lacked imagination or compassion. he also told me I was too pretty to have any real problems.

Overall, I found the violence in these stories pretty disturbing, particularly as a number featured women asking men to hurt them, or for rough sex. This is not the sort of stuff I want to read about (that’s not me in denial, that’s me choosing what restores).

Difficult Women is my fifth collection as part of Short Story September, hosted by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers.

2.5/5

The most popular dish at the Koivu is the pannukakku, a Finnish pancake. If Old Larsen is too hungover, Hanna will heat the iron skillet in the oven and mix the batter … She enjoys the ratchet sound as she pulls the sift trigger.