Collected Short Stories by Roxane Gay "Difficult Women" Well Written but Painful to Read

Roxane Gay is a writer of great skill & creative genius.  Her collection of short stories "Difficult Women" were all impregnable & deeply disturbing.  I was fascinated & repelled by her powerful short stories.  Her troubling tropes all tie in with themes that make life difficult for women.  Once I succumbed to her omnipotence as a storyteller I surrendered to horrific subjects of physical abuse, sexual abuse and a base animalistic nature possessed by women that harbors incredible rage & anger. Gay writes convincingly of the transparency of women except as sexual object.  Several of Gay's stories deal with the immense agony of losing one's child & the guilt that can only be mitigated seeking penance by being brutally beaten or sexually molested.  Interestingly, Gay writes often about children without siblings whose parents only had enough love for one child.  Twins appeared to be the only ones able to love selflessly & maintain healthy relationships.  For the most part, there was a plan for escape from relationships or a need to push a loved one away.   Gay confronts racism & "jungle fever" a lust for women of color.  Brown enough to satisfy sexual desires but not too dark as to be considered unattractive of problematic.  Prejudice is seen as being passed from generation to generation.  There was an overall oppressiveness to Gay's stories.   Even a mother's misguided words or advice prove excruciating.  A mother mourning her child killed in an accident is blamed by her mother "How could you let this happen."   The stories are over wrought with rage, violence resentment and self-loathing.  In addition to the hostilities & self-destruction is the pall of despair & worthlessness in many ways handed down from the mother.  One mother shares her misguided wisdom "You make friends with the ugliest kid in your class and you make friends with the loneliest kids in your class.  The ones off by themselves.  They will be the best friends you've ever had and they will make you feel better about yourself."  And the advice one mother gives her daughter for holding onto her man, "No mystery to keeping a man.  You do whatever sick thing he wants, when he wants and you'll never have a problem."  I have no quarrel with the expertise of Gay's piercing stories that cut like a knife.  However, the stories are grim, depressing & upsetting.  These stories are not for the tame.