Memoirist slims down with humor, not self-pity
Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self
By Frances Kuffel
Broadway, 272 pp., $24
At 338 pounds, Frances Kuffel couldn't stand for more than 10 minutes before her thigh went numb. When she was 31 her gallbladder and a 36-pound ovarian cyst were removed. But by age 44 she weighed around 168 pounds, and she ably hiked the mountains around her Montana hometown. In her engaging memoir, "Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self," Kuffel details her arduous journey from fat to thin with relentless honesty, humor, and self-awareness. Though it is not the typical diet book -- not once is the phrase "low carb" mentioned -- it should motivate anyone seeking to lose a significant amount of weight and live with the results.
Kuffel, a New York literary agent, is a talented writer, and "Passing" evokes her quirky presence. She writes that one of her favorite fantasies as a child was that an atomic bomb would wipe out everyone but her, and she would be left with Missoula's unscathed grocery stores. "I knew exactly where I would start: the bakery." She confronts her early obsession with food with clarity and takes full ownership of her overeating as a child. Her childhood home was calm and her adoptive parents loving. Yet she was unable to stop herself from sneaking food from the kitchen or eating leftovers from discarded dinner plates. She was smitten and helpless around food: "Food wanted me. I wanted it more than I wanted anyone else. That is all that matters."
Kuffel's obesity manifested itself through all the layers of her life. She believes that it was her weight that kept her chained to a domineering, patronizing boss, and in a job that left her broke and unfulfilled. Fat haunted her daily life as she battled health problems, public shame, and her private defeat when it came to food. But Kuffel never seems self-pitying. She relates her adversity with caustic humor and sharp dialogue that leaves the reader cheering her on and admiring her fortitude. One of the events that trigger her weight-loss journey is an encounter with her gay best friend, Dennis. He is struggling with alcoholism, and their struggles collide when he launches into a drunken tirade about her weight.
She describes her life on the "Planet of Fat" as one of "fringe" eating and not fitting in. On that planet, she groups fat women into social roles; from the "Orphan," who is "without affect or direction, seen mostly in grocery stores: stretch pants, T-shirt, sneakers that splay across sockless, mottled feet," to the "Careerist," "whose eating is the metronome of her success and whose girth is a kind of proof of it, authoritative and unassailable." Kuffel's self-loathing can be off-putting and confusing at times, as her tone suggests some superiority and a lack of empathy for these women. She describes herself as occupying the role of the "Fag Hag" only to say a few lines later, "Naturally, I disliked Fag Hags, but fat ones were especially horrible, unworthy of the attention they got."
When Kuffel joins a 12-step program to lose the weight, she is skeptical but is quickly cocooned by the program's support system. The women she meets, who become her sponsors and allies, are her mainstay, taking late-night phone calls and giving pep talks. She does not describe the weight-loss process in great length, which is one of the book's shortcomings. It would have been interesting to read about how she was able to stick so religiously to a diet that involved no flour or sugar for two years. Instead she details her post-weight-loss endeavors to assimilate into the "normal" world, which she calls "Planet of the Girls." She takes baby steps into that world, developing an affinity for clothes shopping that doesn't involve Lane Bryant. She goes on her first real date at age 44 and experiences love and heartbreak as if she were a teenager. Shopping, adorning herself, responding to second glances from the opposite sex are all events she experiences with a bit of wonder, and they highlight her transformation into a more confident woman, comfortable in her imperfect but healthier body.
Even after she loses the weight, Kuffel continues to struggle to integrate normal foods into her diet. She suffers some setbacks as her weight seesaws and her health is again endangered. But with her triumphant weight loss and moving memoir, she seems forever removed from the sidelines of her own life.
