The Textual Confessional
45
where I went,'’ Hombacher states. “Writing this book was the only thing I could
think o f’ (2-7).
Born in Walnut Creek, California, Hombacher is the daughter of
theatrical parents who fought on a frequent basis. Throughout childhood,
Hombacher writes, she was never normal about food. As a baby, her mother was
unable to breast feed her “because it made her feel as if she were being
devoured.” As an infant, Hombacher was allergic to cow’s milk, soy milk, and
rice milk, and as a child she suffered from a string of food allergies. From
childhood to a young adult, Hombacher never felt comfortable with her body.
“It always seemed to me a strange and foreign entity,” she writes. “I don’t know
that there was ever a time when 1 was not conscious of it. As far back as 1 can
think, 1 was aware of my corporeality, my physical imposition of space” (1213). Hombacher recalls that she always felt guilt and shame over her body,
feeling that the eyes of the world were focused on her countless flaws. She adds:
Somehow I learned before 1 could articulate it that the body—
my body—was dangerous. The body was dark and possibly
dank, and maybe dirty. And silent, the body was silent, not to
be spoken of, I did not tmst it. It seemed treacherous. 1
watched it with a wary eye (14).
In 1982, at age eight, Hombacher’s troubled family moved to
Minnesota, where her father was raised. A year later, without any conscious
warning or premeditation, her first bout of bulimia occurred. Surrounded by a
mother who, at age 40, was undergoing a midlife crisis and a father who had
come to the realization that he would never achieve greatness in the theater,
Hombacher became increasingly neurotic a