Customer Reviews

I, Fatty: A Novel

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Jerry Stahl seems to be able to find the sarcastic and sardonic humor in even the most downtrodden lives. "I, Fatty" is a firsthand account of Fatty Arbuckle's tumultuous life. It's written very simply and helps us to imagine the inner turmoil of being an outsider in a judgemental society.

Born to an abusive father in Kansas, Arbuckle turned to theatre as an escape from a bitter life. He rose to fame in the cinema and at one point was more popular than Chaplin. He was the first screen actor to make a million dollars a year.

But in 1921 he was accused of the rape and murder of actress Virginia Rappe. He was slandered by the press and not even his acquittal could save his career. He eventually lost everything.

Stahl emphasizes the mental anguish of being fat, impotent, and presumed guilty. He also shows the role that heroin played in Fatty Arbuckle's life. Heroin was readily available and legal at the time, and he became addicted using it as a pain killer after a botched medical procedure. Towards the end of his years, his servant used heroine as a tool to get Arbuckle to divulge all of his secrets.

I had the pleasure of hearing Stahl read from the book and it was quite entertaining. He joked that it is obligatory for him to include heroin in every one of his novels. He emphasizes the public outcry against Fatty as being led by a conservative anti-Hollywood element. I would agree, but would also like to point out that in the 1920s journalists had more leeway to embelish the truth and print it as fact. Even today, the press chooses to emphasize some facts over others and often slanders people in the process.

If you are interested in the life of one of Hollywood's first stars, and if you like dark humor, "I, Fatty" is for you. It's a good read that will make you think and give you a laugh or two.

'A little tramp stops being a tramp when the camera
stops rolling. But a Fatty stays fat'
Until I read Jerry Stahl's almost unbearably
beautiful faux memoir on Fatty Arbuckle, all I knew
about the silent movie star was what I'd read in
'Hollywood Babylon' many years earlier. The first
Movie-star in history, ruined by the accusation that
he raped and murdered a young starlet with the help of
a Coca-Cola bottle. Stahl crawls into the mind of a
battered, dirt-poor little boy, hated by his father.
After ditching school to watch vaudeville shows, he
soon stumbles on the stage himself. But he becomes
famous for what he loathes himself most for: for being
fat. He stuffs himself in baby-clothes and drag and
soon matches Charlie Chaplin's and Buster Keaton's
popularity and public adulation. But he becomes
famous for what he loathes himself most for: for being
fat.
It is well known that he drank too much. But his
Heroin-addiction was something that is not that well
known. Even though he was acquitted after three trials,
he never recovered. Stahl draws a brilliant parallel
to the first victim of the media driven Hollywood
scandal. No matter what's the truth; the public has
decided that this fat and disgustingly funny troll did
it.
Stahl makes you feel the anguish and the self-hatred
like nobody else, but he also makes us love Fatty Arbuckle.

First of all, I have to make it clear that Jerry Stahl's book I, FATTY is not about Roscoe Arbuckle. It is rather a novel about a fictional silent film comedian given Arbuckle's name. It seems quite obvious to me that Stahl's interest in Roscoe is based upon a fascination concerning the murder which never took place and the terrible trials rather than his importance as a comedian during the childhood of motion-pictures.

The main incidents from Arbuckle's life are here: the heavy boy who was abused by his father as a child, hired at Keystone in 1913, and quickly became one of the most popular comedians on the screen, until an awful scandal destroyed his career in 1921. He was declared innocent a half year later, but by then the audiences had already abandoned him.

Yes, most of the incidents in the novel are actually true; what's seldom true is how the incidents are described. After Roscoe's mother died while he was a child, his brutal father William began abusing him terribly; during a period he even wisped him. But no biography I've read covering the life of Arbuckle has mentioned that William screamed to him that he had "ruined her womanhood" and that he was guilty in her death.

Another imporant factual error is Roscoe's relation to drugs. While at the peak of his success, he got a serious sickness in his legs, which gave him enormous pains and his doctor feared that he could never be cured(which, fortuantely, turned out to be wrong). He was recommended by his doctor to use morphine a while to smother the pains, which he did; however, when declared healthy again he stopped and, as far as we know, never tried it again. In Stahl's book, on the other hand, "Fatty" is a serious abuser of drugs until his death.

It didn't surprise me then, that the comedian in I, FATTY died of an overdose of, exactly, drugs, which is far from true. According to his third wife Addie, he died quietly of a heart attack in his bed.

I didn't find Stahl's "Fatty" to be very sympatethic, either; he's constantly sarcastic and rarely says anything good about neither himself or anyone else when, in fact, the real Arbuckle actually described Charlie Chaplin as "the only comic genius of our time" and was overall a lovely person, according to most soures; a man with flaws, but one you'd like to be friends with.

Johnny Depp called this book "the true skinny on Fatty." Depp is a very good actor, but I doubt he knows very much about Arbuckle inasmuch as he claims this; I must admit I hope he doesn't make a movie about the comedian based on this book, which he says he'd like to.

This, however, doesn't make Stahl a bad writer. The book has some very clever lines and is overall a highly enjoyable novel, absolutely. But one must not take it as a biography about Roscoe Arbuckle, because it isn't. To you who want to know the true story, I recommend Stuart Oderman's biography; to you who simply are in the mood of fascinating entertainment, I recommend Jerry Stahl's I, FATTY.

Roscoe Arbuckle was a fat man who lived a tragic life. He was born in Kansas to an abusive father and invalid mother. The father taunted him for his considerable girth while beating him with a strap. Roscoe ran away after a year or so of grammer school to hit the boards in vaudeville.
Underneath the all too too sullied flesh there was a good brain and warm heart. Fatty became famous as a star comedian along with opium addicted Mabel Normand in the Keystone Cop flicks. Fatty knew them all-Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd. He was the first Hollywood star to make a million dollars a year and was loved by the vast American public who enjoyed a night at the flickers.
Along the way he engaged in many bad habits such as heroin and opium usage, excessive eating and drinking enough to drown several grown men. He was known as "The Prince of Whales." Arbuckle was always well dressed, knew his lines and was eager to help newcomers in the business.
Fatty's life went down the spout when he was accused of the rape and murder of the floozy Virginia Rappe in a St. Francis Hotel Room in San Francisco. Fatty endured three trials and terrible publicity. He was finally acquitted but his career was in shambles. He went on to direct a few movies under an assumed name and opened a nightclub but the damage had been done to his career. Fatty married three times, endured several physical afflictions and was the first big star whose scandal gave Hollywood a bad reputation in middle America.
Jerry Stahl has done his research on the Arbuckle life and career. Arbuckle (1887-1933) was an important figure in early film comedy who deserves to be studied.

`I love this book,' reads Johnny Depp's comment on the front dust jacket of I, FATTY. `I like it,' is mine. It's a great title for a book and a tremendous tale of early Hollywood, told with a verve and flair reminiscent of that which E L Doctorow's RAGTIME applied to the eastern seaboard of the US of A.

I, FATTY is a first-person narrative fictional reconstruction of the life and times of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, the first Hollywood star to earn $1M a year, only to find his fame turn to infamy and fortune slip from his grasp after a party resulting in the death of a female partygoer in Room 1221 of San Francisco's St Francis Hotel.

Revisionist in the sense that this is Arbuckle's personal take on his career and eventual disgrace, there is still no way the fat boy wasn't "at it" - whatever "at it" may mean, of course. He was not a rapist (for reasons revealed in the book), and he was certainly no murderer. But the precise details of Virginia Rappe's demise remain as unclear as they ever were. Fact: Fatty Arbuckle - a definite dipso and occasional drug addict - is caught in flagrante with a damsel in dire distress who subsequently dies.

So what is Fatty Arbuckle exactly? A voyeur? Maybe. A raver? Well, yes: he's no angel, that's for sure. But neither is Virginia (-in-name-only) Rappe, the professional lady who expires subsequent to Fatty's alleged ministrations with a Coke bottle. And neither are the press and public any more angelic than they.

Thanks to the concentrated attention of the Hearst press in the main (Buster Keaton apart, Fatty's friends are the kind best described as "fair weather") Fatty Arbuckle is a condemned man from the start, and his world caves in completely until, exonerated at last (after a trial and retrials), he makes a lacklustre, partial, almost hand-to-mouth comeback as William Goodrich.

On the minus side, Jerry Stahl's narrative is a bit too magazine-speak smooth for my liking. Personal pronouns appear to be anathema to him: a hostile witness instantly becomes "madcap Mabel", Fatty's car is christened "Big man-mobile", and an ill-favoured acquaintance attracts the soubriquet "Old Onion-Breath". Nor is the odd anachronism outside the author's remit: Fatty (dead by 1933) bewails the lack of the GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS 20-odd years before its time. But on the plus side, though Chaplin is somewhat neglected due to Fatty's dislike of the man, there are wonderful characterisations here of Mack Sennett and Buster Keaton - in addition to which a young Bob Hope is glimpsed on stage with Fatty in Cleveland, Ohio - and Bogart on Broadway.

As I say, I like I, FATTY: it's a good read about interesting people in an exciting time and place. Still, I'd draw the line at love. Accordingly, I hereby draw that line unhesitatingly under Ted Heller's FUNNYMEN. Now there's a book I love: a Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis-type showbiz scenario that romps entertainingly, mellifluously, and quite unstoppably from front cover to back. I rate it a real tour-de-force! A true American masterpiece! Read it, please read it - and read I, FATTY too.

This book is as, stated in reviews, a "faux-memoir" and as such should not be treated like a precious historical artifact--it's "faction" and damn good faction at that.

The author has a great take on what really happened that Labor Day weekend in San Francisco, Fatty's fall from grace, and his ability to eventually rise up again. Plus his version of Fatty's hideous childhood and horrid father gives a great insight into the man's psyche and physique--

And it doesn't matter that this isn't a blow by blow rehash and meticulous recitation of articles in a dry fashion like so many lifeless biographies. I FATTY is a vivd version of a super star's life, told by one of country's most entertaining and original writers.

I really enjoyed this novel. Written as a quasi-memoir, Stahl gives us a sympathetic portrait of an early comic genius brought down by his own inner demons and perhaps the first media-circus celebrity scandal. Except for students of early film history, Arbuckle is all but gone and forgotten by most folks. I found it fascinating to read about the Wild West atmosphere of early Hollywood - I'd recent finished Budd Schulberg's "Moving Pictures," his autobiography about growing up in Los Angeles when Hollywood was literally a couple of barns and orange groves - which made "I, Fatty" that much more interesting. I'm not sure how accurate all of the information in here is, but I liked how Stahl peeled away the sheen and examined just how instant celebrity and fame warped not only Arbuckle but Mabel Normand and others as well. His prose is often very funny, in the 20's slangy vernacular, and it was a quick, enjoyable read.

An acerbic, harsh, funny and moving novel of silent comedic actor Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle. I have not read author Jerry Stahl before and was unfamiliar with his penchant for the degenerative dark side of humanity and the humour he can pull from that. This unique caustic wit allowed Stahl to raise Arbuckle up from the dusty past and let his voice finally be heard. Stahl did extensive research, as the bibliography shows, and places Arbuckle back up among the great comic pioneers where he belongs. But Stahl seems to get heavy handed with Abuckle's alleged drug addictions, to heroin (legal at the time and marketed by Bayer) and morphine, even using it as a device to force Fatty to tell his life story. There is no doubt he was an alcoholic and did use drugs to control pain after a horrifically botched job on a leg injury but no indication of this level of abuse. Since this is historical fiction, the author can take artistic license and include his required use of heroin that he jokes at his readings has to be included in all of his books. This never holds up the story just muddies it a bit.

Now that the questionable drug use issue is out of the way, I can get to the meat of this review. If you want a time capsule of the turn of the century and early Hollywood, then hold on for a wow of a ride. Starting with Roscoe's birth at a hefty 16 pounds, he is ostracized for his size from then on and suffers harsh abuse by his alcoholic father. Finding himself abandoned by his father as a boy, he finagles his way onto the vaudeville stage as boy singer of illustrated songs. Along the way from singer to comedian, he does an act with the pitcher Cy Young about the benefits of health, gets caught in the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 (the only time "he and the great John Barrymore played the same roll") and has a pie fight across the Rio Grande with Pancho Villa. His Mack Sennett years, where he helps in the fledgling careers of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, teams up with Mable Normand and introduces pie fights to the world are like being included into an exclusive club. These times are written with a captivating, naive innocence that I didn't want to end. How much fun is it learn while filming in New York Arbuckle meets and dines with Enrico Caruso who compliments him on his singing. All these tidbits from the times added to the realism and enjoyment for this history and old movie junkie.

The touch of harshness and foreboding that Stahl layered in during Fatty's rise, added to the pull of the narrative although I admit I found myself not ever wanting to get to the night of the infamous party and his inevitable fall. Stahl does not shy away from explicit descriptions on what Arbuckle did try to do to revive Virginia Rappe. From here the reader is then pulled through the ensuing three trials in a horrified daze, shaking their head at the injustice of it all. Instances like Arbuckle walking up the steps of the court house for the second trial, where around 50 members of the Women's Vigilante Commission encircle him and, upon a signal and in unison, they all spit on him are dizzying yet mesmerizing. William Randolph Hearst's paper, which leads the relentless libelous pursuit against him, reported "Fatty made a most impressive centerpiece in the fountain." All of this culminates with the acquittal, along with the accompanying statement, after the third trial but sadly Arbuckle knows it doesn't matter. He valiantly tries to put his life back together, with support and help from Charlie Chaplin, Joe Schenck and his true friend Buster Keaton, but as a New York Times editorial said the day after his acquittal; "Arbuckle was a scapegoat, and the only thing to do... is to chase him off..." and they did. His response, "What do you do when the world thinks your a monster, and you know it's the world that's monstrous?", he did the best he could with the slices of pie he was given.

It is the ending that fell flat and prevented this from being five stars. It just felt rushed and a bit confused. Despite that, it is a powerful read that will have you looking up other players involved in Fatty's story or wanting to rent one or more of his movies to see this giant (no pun intended) of the silver screen. In other words you won't be ready to shut this book and forget Roscoe Arbuckle anytime soon!

I just finished this engaging book. Actually, I had trouble putting it down and doing other things.

I had just read Ace Atkins, "Devil's Garden" (which I highly recommend to anyone) and found this book to be a great addition to learning about Roscoe as young boy who finds his way to true financial and Hollywood success only to be "hounded" by inner demons of child hood memories.

But put the demons aside, the book really develops the character into a full blown man with little education and a fine mind. He never loses touch his "inner child" and finds fun and amusement along the way.

Totally enjoyable.

It's a fictional autobiography (although apparently exhaustingly researched - there's a lengthy list of source material in the back) of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, one of the silent film era's biggest stars. He was also one of the era's most infamous men, having been falsely accused of the rape of a woman which lead to her death. Honestly, I got the book more because I have read Stahl's other books and loved them. I didn't know much about Arbuckle other than that Chris Farley wanted to play Arbuckle in a movie around the time that Farley died. In any case, this was a great book, and a little out of character for Stahl. His other books are somewhere in between James Ellroy and Chuck Palahniuk, which is to say completely debauched and thoroughly offensive. In this one, the debauchery remains, but there's a kind of sweetness and naivety to Arbuckle's voice that I didn't at all expect. Even if, like me, you don't know much about Arbuckle, like me, you might find it to be an engaging and quick read.