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 ...
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"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 "Incisive, bitingly funny and thought provoking. Grant is a funny writer with a knack for some wicked one-liners. A novel that should make everyone sit up and think." BIRMINGHAM POST "You could accuse Rob Grant of having an axe to grind. He is, after all, no stick insect himself. But in the bitingly satirical FAT, he raise so many thought-provoking points about body image and the scare stories we're given about health issues, you have to admit he's done his homework. Besides which, when a book's this funny, what's wrong with a bit of axe grinding?" -- Dave Golder BBC FOCUS "A roller coaster ride with plenty of laughs and much to recommend it." WOOD & VALE Grant crafts a good read out of a subject clearly close to his heart. A satirical bite worthy of Ben Elton." -- Dean Patrick DREAMWATCH "Though vaguely similar in approach to Ben Elton's novels, it is a funny book. He crushes the cholesterol lie, the salt myth, the BMI con and a few other epidemiological scams based on shoddy statistics and rubbishy thinking - all for our own good, of course." -- Andrew McKie THE TELEGRAPH "A tasty trim novel that hasn't been superfluously fleshed out." -- Ed Perkins The Daily Echo "Grant's knack of injecting humour into the bleakest scenario makes for a read that's as addictive as an MSG-laced takeaway." IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAY "There's plenty of food for thought to chew over here: while it may not satisfy the appetite for 'Red Dwarf' fans, it's way beyond mere fast food fiction. An interesting read." VENUE
About the Author
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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4.0 out of 5 stars
One to Consume,
By
This review is from: Fat (Gollancz Sf S.) (Hardcover)
Fat is follows the events of three different people. Grenville is a TV chef with anger management problems who has stacked on the kilograms over the years and is now quite obese, no longer able to find anything other than sport tracksuits on the racks that fit him anymore. One day he decides to do something about this so signs up to his local gym. His treatment and the way he deals with this along with the events following makes for some fun reading. Jeremy Slank fancies himself as a bit of a ladies man, he's very good as his job as a conceptuologist and knows it. The British prime minister has asked him to help market the new Well Farms which are camps that will help the obese get back to normal and stop being a burden on taxpayers. Hayleigh has an eating disorder and is the serious third of this storyline. All storylines ultimately cross at one time or another in what is a very interesting and at times hilarious book. I'll definitely check out other books by this author.
Other similar authors include Max Barry, John O'Farrell and Bill Fitzhugh, check them out as well.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Laugh Out loud funny,
This review is from: Fat (Gollancz Sf S.) (Hardcover)
Maybe Grant writes for a niche audience, but I find his work to be both funny and insightful. His characters are absurd, but the same way that the fellow down the hall at work or the neighbour up the block may well be.. or maybe even we would appear to others if they were viewing us without any of the social barriers we use to protect our privacy. Grant creates an social and political environment where the obese become social pariah, and his novel's three main characters provide some opposing views on the whole concept of body image and (mental) health. The take off on the Tony Blair-ish British PM is bang-on, while the character of the budding bulimic teen was handled with considerable empathy as well as a healthy dose of humour.
I have followed Grant's work, post-"Red Dwarf", and this is his best yet. just be cautious of reading it in a public place, because you will "LOL".
4.0 out of 5 stars
Weighty Issues,
By Wyvernfriend (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fat (Gollancz Sf S.) (Hardcover)
Well I couldn't resist the pun!
Fat isn't really SF. It's one of those books that's warning of the ills of following a particular trend in social management to try to warn us about our current situation. It's set in the very near future, a future where being fat isn't illegal, yet, but it's legal to charge for a flight by weight, to charge extra in trains and busses, to discriminate basically because people are fat. All that overweight people hear is that they have to just buck up and lose weight. Like that's easy. This is the story of three characters, Grenville Roberts, a chef who has slipped into obese while he wasn't watching, a man having the worst day of his life. Jeremy Slank, a PR man, or as he prefers a Conceptuologist, who has got the job of promoting the Government's new Fat Farms and Hayleigh, a teenager obsessed with food and weight and determined to impress her pop star idol, some day. Along with these three there's Jemma Bartlet, a research assistant who is the scientific mouthpiece for the author and lust object for Jeremy. It's a story of how weight could become a bigger issue and how the simplistic views of weight gain and loss are actually damaging. I found Grenville's story to be the most heartbreaking, Grant goes through his morning ritual and the effort he has to put into getting from bed to car. The subsequent visit to the Gym was the trigger for his later irate reaction and you could see how just one more moment of humiliation would put someone over the edge. It's interesting, funny in places, thought provoking in others but overall it just didn't flow well and sometimes it felt like the author was lecturing to you, the ending also felt rushed and I don't really see much space for a sequel.
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