Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs

I was intrigued by the title, and I was intrigued by the photo on the cover (a cat wearing a wig and makeup and looking a bit like Dame Edna, if Dame Edna had been born in a trailer park), so I bought a used copy of Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs by Cheryl Peck.  I’d read “iffy” reviews of it on the QPB.com site, but the Amazon.com readers seemed to love it, and my love of the cover and title made me optimistic.  I started reading and was amused.  I thought to myself, “How could anyone not love this book?”  I then got further along and thought, “This is a fairly likeable book”.  I got about two-thirds of the way through and thought, “How on earth did anyone ever agree to publish this book?!”  It never did live up to the cat photo.

The book is a collection of more-or-less true anecdotes about the author, her family, and friends.  The author is a lesbian, she’s from a large family with sisters and brothers, she’s got a partner, she’s got a pet, and she’s got a lot going on in her life which probably makes for a good story if you’re at a picnic or sitting around the dinner table, but the stories just aren’t that funny when they’re written out.  I think a lot of them have that, “I guess you had to be there” quality to them.  Cheryl Peck isn’t a bad writer, but a lot of the anecdotes are rambling and unfocused and just sort of… end.  Many of the stories are like all those bad sketches on Saturday Night Live, the ones with a funny premise which never seem to go anywhere and which end abruptly.  She’ll introduce a story as being about her brothers, but then she writes mainly about her sisters and tosses in a brother reference as the closing sentence in an attempt to tie up all the loose ends.  It reads awkwardly.  Peck is also a poet, and interspersed with the anecdotes are a number of her poems, some funny, some serious.  The amusing ones are okay, but the serious ones are such a downer that they completely destroy any good fun you might be having while reading.  The poems also make the book seem like a lesbian book, where women are getting in touch with their feelings, blah, blah, blah.

The book jacket explains that Peck was encouraged to write this book by family and friends, and that it was originally self-published.  I can see how the collection might have appealed to people who know her, but it just didn’t appeal to me.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/24 at 11:44 PM

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Next entry: Yes, dammit, I know who The Corrs are!

Previous entry: La gastronome?

<< Back to main