A very moving book as well as an incredibly funny satire. Rob Grant really taps in to the obsession we all have with the issue of being fat. We are bombarded daily with issues of self image and in this book Grant looks at how these pressures effect and damage people. This is quite different from his previous novels but equally as satisfying.
Rob Grant's new novel is a revelation. After INCOMPETENCE we would all have expected a killingly funny satire. And in its satire of our obsession with body image, of how the media makes us what we are FAT is certainly that.
But in its depiction of Grenville, a fat man at his wits end with the need to be thin; of Hayleigh, a teenage girl obsessed with her terror of being fat and of Jeremy, the self-absorbed, self-adoring 'conceptualist' employed to promote the government's new 'Fat Farms' Rob Grant has given us, yes a very, very funny book, but also an immensely moving and personal novel about how we all feel about our bodies.
As Grenville deals with the humilation and daily indignity of being fat, as Hayleigh struggles to deal with her anorexia and as Jeremy comes to terms with the dangerous lies at the centre of the government's new health regime FAT takes us on a hilarious and thought-provoking journey through our all-consuming obession with fat.
This is a hilariously moving, movingly hilarious novel and marks a massive step-change in Rob Grant's growth as a writer. Here is a hugely commerical new voice in mainstream, high concept, high in poly-saturates, commercial fiction. It's also safe to say that with this new novel, he's writing about what he knows . . .
"Both hilarious and intelligent. Fat is an ambitious picture of a society where greed fights a never-ending battle with the struggle for a slim, well-toned body. The fashion in which Rob Grant juggles his characters as they pursue their disparate destinies has the invention of a novelist from a very different generation: Evelyn Waugh."
Barry Forshaw, THE EXPRESS
"If there's a message here, it's to throw away the diet book and embrace your sexy swagger. Considering Rob Grant is a fat bloke himself, his portrayal of Hayleigh and her anorexia is a complete triumph. She's the real heart of the story and Grant charts her rapid decline with both insight and humour." Henry Sutton, DAILY MIRROR
"Grant's made a leap forward as an author here. Thought-provoking, moving and hilarious."
Guy Haley, SFX
ISBN: 9780575078208
Publication date: 12/07/2007
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
Format: Paperback (a Format)
| ISBN: | 9780575078208 |
| Publication date: | 12th July 2007 |
| Author: | Rob Grant |
| Publisher: | Orion Publishing Co |
| Format: | Paperback (a Format) |
| Pagination: | 336 pages |
| Genres: | eBook Favourites, Science Fiction, |
| Categories: | Science fiction, |
Rob Grant was born in Salford. Determined not to let them hold him back he (after a protracted period doing any old thing) went on to co-create and write with Doug Naylor the astonishingly successful TV series RED DWARF. He also wrote the DARK AGES and STRANGERERS TV series.
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