Fat Girl [Hardcover]

Judith Moore's breathtakingly frank memoir, Fat Girl, is not for the faint of heart. It packs more emotional punch in its slight 196 pages than any doorstopper confessional. But the author warns us in her introduction of what's to come, and she consistently delivers. "Narrators of first-person claptrap like this often greet the reader at the door with moist hugs and complaisant kisses," Moore advises us bluntly. "I won't. I will not endear myself. I won't put on airs. I am not that pleasant. The older I get the less pleasant I am. I mistrust real-life stories that conclude on a triumphant note.... This is a story about an unhappy fat girl who became a fat woman who was happy and unhappy." With that, Moore unflinchingly leads us backward into a heartbreaking childhood marked by obesity, parental abuse, sexual assault, and the expected schoolyard bullying. What makes Fat Girl especially harrowing, though, is Moore's obvious self-loathing and her eagerness to share it with us. "I have been taking a hard look at myself in the dressing room's three-way mirror. Who am I kidding? My curly hair forms a corona around my round scarlet face, from the chin of which fat has begun to droop. My swollen feet in their black Mary Janes show from beneath the bottom hem of the ridiculous swaying skirt. The dressing room smells of my beefy stench. I should cry but I don't. I am used to this. I am inured." Moore's audaciousness in describing her apparently awful self ensures that her reader is never hardened to the horrors of food obsession and obesity. And while it is at times excruciatingly difficult bearing witness to Moore's merciless self-portraits, the reader cannot help but be floored by her candor. With Fat Girl, Moore has raised the stakes for autobiography while reminding us that our often thoughtless appraisals of others based on appearances can inflict genuine harm. It's a painful lesson well worth remembering. --Kim Hughes

In her memoir of growing up fat, Moore, who previously wrote about food in Never Eat Your Heart Out, employs her edgy, refreshingly candid voice to tell the story of a little girl who weighed 112 pounds in second grade; whose father abandoned her to a raging, wicked mother straight out of the Brothers Grimm; whose lifelong dieting endeavors failed as miserably as her childhood attempts to find love at home. As relentless as this catalogue of beatings, humiliation and self-loathing can be, it's tolerable—even inspiring in places—because Moore pulls it off without a glimmer of self-pity. The book does have some high points, especially while Moore is stashed at the home of a kind uncle who harbors his own secrets, but the happiest moments are tinged with dread. Who can help wondering what will become of this tortured and miserable child? Alas, Moore cuts her story short after briefly touching on an unsatisfying reunion with her father and her two failed marriages. The ending feels hurried, but perhaps the publication of this book will give Moore's story the happy ending she deserves.
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Moore's memoir focuses on the "curse" of obesity that has plagued her throughout her life. Given a father who overate and deserted her when she was four and a mother who regularly beat her, one finds no surprise when Moore turns to food for comfort and as a way to sublimate other appetites. Of course, as her vivid writing reveals, obsessions with food and angst over excess avoirdupois are too complex to yield a deterministic answer. Moore's characters stick in readers' minds: a talented mother whose own mother never failed to criticize; an absent, food-obsessed father too guilty to contact his daughter till she was married and pregnant; a generous, nonjudgmental upstairs neighbor who let Moore devour her larder while the neighbor went on an extended trip; and a gay music-teacher uncle who gave Moore the most normal, loving home she knew. Moore struggles with her weight and her barren relationships, never coming to terms with her body image. Poignant, deeply felt, remarkably funny, Moore's memoir will resonate with anyone who's ever lived with self-hatred. Mark Knoblauch
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'A beautiful, almost dizzyingly attractive read.' Julie Myerson 'A toxic piece of writing ... mature, lyrical, compelling. Moore's unbridled anger draws the reader in, pitching the book into the same voyeuristic territory as a horror story or violent crime novel.' Times 'If you want inspiration this book is not for you. But if your stomach is strong you won't forget it.' Evening Standard 'Both a harrowing story and a compelling social history, and it has the appropriate effect of one minute making you want to weep and the next of sending you in the direction of the larder.' Daily Telegraph 'The most candid and intimate memoir I have ever read; it is as if you have been sewn up in the author's skin.' Hilary Mantel --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.