BOOK REVIEW: Big Brother, by Lionel Shriver

I'll tell you upfront. They say I'm a person with issues about weight. Then I look around. I conclude, I'm staying on the horse I rode in on, though it's name is InDenial.   

This novel is a poignant, brutal tale about obesity and its looming presence in the U.S. It's a narrative given by a financially successful sister about her beloved talented brother who fails as a jazz musician and returns home.

His appearance is shocking because he has become morbidly obese.  Even worse, he cannot face the fact that he washed out, and keeps talking about his "glory days" and his come-back plans, to everyone's great pain.

His sister Pandora, married to an increasingly  unsympathetic husband, decides to save her brother and together they undertake a liquid diet that will last 9 to 12 months.  It's a fascinating story, if you've ever dieted, and how they manage to defeat their hunger seems miraculous. 

The story of Edison's graceless fall and his sacrifice, though he will never burn so brightly again, is an acerbic moral tale recommending examined self-acceptance.  

It's a world where we tell affluently-born children they all are the best and the brightest, that they are entitled; and the  have-nots learn their status from the media and want a 29-minute silver bullet fix. 

There's a sort of Midwestern pragmatic craft artisan ethic working behind this story's shell.  Enduring work matters, the quest for satiety is a trap evolution has laid, and just showing up is worth less than it seems, though one can't manage without it. Disappointments will happen, and they are the making of real character.      

I liked this tough read tremendously, yet I have simply not been able to discuss this novel with anyone. My house is made of glass, and so I can throw no stones even though its rooms are full of elephants - targets all.

Reasons for obesity in the U.S. may be much more banal than Edison's plight. Cheap fast food, working absent parents, our biological mandate to choose high-calorie foods, severed from nature and the work of the land, common disappointments, sexual boredom, amoral marketing, the value of an attractive appearance, 

plaque on doctor's office, Beverly Hills

laden with status and power messages, the easy slide into loneliness.

The novel's end is a twist; though Shriver does warn you. Of course, it had to turn out like that.  It's the way the real world is.

Isn't it?