Body Love

A re-read of Dorothy Rice's Gray is the New Black

Because I’m working on a manuscript about body image and aging, I’m reading a lot of memoirs and nonfiction that relate to that topic. I just finished Dorothy Rice’s Gray is the New Black (2019, Otis Books).

This is a re-read; I first read it in 2021 when I had the incipient, nebulous idea of writing about the body (my first incarnation was to focus solely on beauty and aging). I had already marked passages that stood out to me; this time around I marked so much more. My idea for my book has changed, so I read this through a slightly different lens and got even more out of it.

I enjoyed this raw, unflinching look at what it means to be a "mature" woman. Dorothy Rice has struggled with weight issues and feelings of shame and being "less than," surrounded by two sisters--one of whom is tiny and beautiful, and the other dazzlingly funny. Rice recounts her journey over the course of one year. We see her successes as well as her lows. She takes us into the past by writing the story of her sexual assault. She ponders what it means to have a successful relationship -- what does that look like? What happens when the two people in the relationship communicate in different ways?

We need more books like this. Stories that don't have neat or happy endings, stories that tell us what it's like to be an aging woman.

So thank you, Dorothy!