Hunger is a strange thing, an invisible driving force that motivates much of the human experience across every identifier: race, gender, age. To hunger is to crave, to yearn for something outside oneself, a possession that drives us all toward a certain eventuality. For the female-identifying experience, hunger can take numerous shapes and forms, reflecting not only a desire for satiation, but a desire for equality, for equilibrium. Catherine Dang’s What Hunger is a tour de force of this very idea, holding no punches in examining grief, hurt, and longing through the lens of a young woman who hungers of the things she cannot find.
The summer before high school, Ronny Nguyen feels as though she’s a bit in limbo. Her older brother Tommy is off to college soon and the little peace within her household seems to be shifting. With so much change abound, emotions are sure to run high between Ronny, Tommy, and their Vietnamese immigrant parents. However, the unexpected occurs completely faltering any sure ground Ronny was once standing on. Trying to navigate the tumultuous waters of grief, teenage misunderstanding, and violence, Ronny finds herself hungry, not for the food her family provides. No, she hungers for something else, something with a metallic taste, something bright in color. Ronny wants blood.
Brutality is a main character in What Hunger, never once reflected in a gratuitous manner, rather an unfortunately realistic feeling of frustration. Ronny’s teenage angst of course feels relatable before tragedy befalls the Nguyen family, but in the wake of so much grief, such anger, such rage fueled misunderstanding feels wholly realized and perfectly apt. Dang’s ability to craft such a sharp knife of sadness feels immaculate, especially in a sea of so much turmoil for Ronny. To see her hurt evokes the deepest of emotions as we venture into territory that would sound absurd in another other context but feels right at home here.
Cannibalism and horror have long worked hand in hand, and the recent surge of symbiosis between female rage and bloodlust feels rather poetic if executed correctly. Without a doubt, What Hunger is a story that falls into this category as ideas of justice, retribution, and consequence are presented center-stage. When the normal course of action, society’s normal means of “handling” inequalities, go unanswered or ineffective, a more intense alternative is sought. Dang reflects on this escalation through Ronny’s hunger, her desire for more than what the world is offering as justice. And while Ronny’s predilections may feel taboo in a vacuum, every part of this change within her makes perfect sense and dare I say, relatable.
Catherine Dang’s poignant prose, her seamless comparison of hunger and desire for justice, and her complex, textured characters intermingle to form one hell of a novel with What Hunger, a story of carnal desire to be treated humanely in a world of seeming indifference. Dang implements remarkable emotional intelligence behind Ronny’s story, her relationship with consumption and craving within the context of her own heritage and place in the American world feeling loaded with nuance. Make no mistake, What Hunger is an angry novel for all the right reasons, giving a voice to the often ignored rage the female-identifying experience harbors. Such anger feels razor-sharp in the world of horror fiction, a knife I will reach for time and time again.