Fat girl is a non-fiction novel based on the abusive life of a young girl who is obese for as long as she can remember. She is mentally and physically abused by her mother and grandmother and her body size is one of the reasons why she faces constant and endless torment from all sectors of society. Her peers distance themselves from her and she leads a solitary life. She is nervous and jumps at the slightest sound. Members of the opposite sex regard her with disgust and one drunken boy tells her that she is “too fat to (fornicate)” (Moore, 18)
Fat Girl by Judith Moore is different from other books that focus on the problem of obesity since it does not provide a happy ending. The author of the book is fat at the beginning of the narration and at the end of the book she is still fat. The book is not meant to give potential readers hope in losing weight but rather to show them the reality about the lives of people living with the condition of obesity. She describes previously not widely known issues such as the blisters fat people get between their eyes because of their thighs rubbing against each other. She talks about the body odors that persist between the thighs and under the breasts of a fat girl saying, “I smell bad.” (Moore, 25)
The book has lengthy and vivid descriptions of food which border on obsession. The references to the book are highly detailed and possibly erotic. The author however dwells heavily on food description and bypasses other issues. For example, she spends pages describing her meals but only dedicates one paragraph to describing her own children. Her language concerning food is infectious but the overall effect that the novel has on a reader is disgust. In particular the author’s description of how she used to feed on her own fingernails until the fingers bled and her she describes the taste of her flesh and blood as slightly salty is quite disturbing and repulsive.
The author describes in self narrative prose how she loves food. This is an area that other authors neglect to include in their prose about obesity. The narrator says, “My mouth is dangerous… rough bread …hot rare peppered steak…steamed broccoli …potatoes sluiced with gravy ….” She describes her food as if she is referring to heaven. The narrator does not like the fact that she is fact and she makes that clear from the onset of the novel. Hence the book does not shine a positive light on being obese. Judith Moore describes what fat means to her personally instead of using a more relatable perspective. She reveals at the books onset, “I hate myself …I am fat.” (Moore, 107)
The narrator is abandoned by her father at a young age and her mother treats her with open scorn and dislike from her early ages. Her mother blames her for all her misfortunes and whips her regularly with her belt until she bleeds. Even after her mother moves to work in the city her sporadic visits reinstalls the sense of loneliness and worthlessness that she has long been subjected to. Her grandmother with whom she comes to live with calls her “spitting image” of her father whom she openly dislikes. The narrator inherited her fatness from her father and her mother tells her occasionally that the reason she kicked her father out of the house was because he was “fat” and worthless. This she does while likening the narrator to the narrator’s father. (Moore, 125)
Fat Girl by Judith Moore is an insightful book that is a great read more so because it moves away from contemporary books that talk about the issue of weight in America and other developed societies. Its approach is more truthful hence more realistic. The author does not seem to look for validation from members of society nor is she interested in encouragement and the book serves no other purpose except to inform. It gives a deep look into the feelings of persons with obesity and their daily struggles without forcing the reader to pick a side.
Work Cited
Moore, Judith. Fat Girl. New York, Hudson Street Press. 2006