This Week in the Mercury
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Books Today in Books I Am Somewhat Embarrassed to Read on the Bus: The Obese
Posted by Alison Hallett on Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 11:14 AM
Anne Lamott is in town next week and so I'm supposed to be reading her new book right now, but I can't quite get excited about it. (Take off your emotional Spanx! Check your closet for Jesus! Hair is history's greatest metaphor! Etc. I'm sure it will be good. I'm just... having trouble getting started.) And so instead I picked up Nick Antosca's The Obese, which is an incredibly sharp and engaging little novel about a young woman who works as a photo retoucher in the fashion industry; who loses her job when a Gchat conversation she had with her boss is forwarded to Jezebel. Oh, and also New York has just been overrun by rabid, rampaging obese people.
I'm only about halfway through the book so far, and I have no idea how the satire is gonna shake out. At this point, all I can say is that the rail-thin, fat-phobic protagonist isn't exactly sympathetic. I do know that I am oddly uncomfortable reading it in on the bus—in part because the cover looks like a mean joke, in part because I really don't want to have to explain the premise to a curious bus person. The Obese came out from the Portland-based imprint Lazy Fascist Press a couple months ago; Powell's has a handful in stock.
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