My Little Book That Couldn’t—And Then Did (Something Cool)

A story of vulnerability, pride, failure, disappointment, and then, unexpected redemption

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I was so proud of it. Unshrinking, my third book, which tackled the topic of fatphobia, was something I’d been working on since 2021. Or, more accurately, since the year 2000. That was the year that “fat bitch” was scrawled on my locker, which was also doused in fish oil—a misogynistic olfactory slur at the formerly all-boys’ school I joined the year it integrated and began to admit girls. I was one of three girls among hundreds of boys. I was sixteen and stocky—barely fat, though I felt enormous. In this case, though, it hardly mattered: having a non-normative body made me a target of bullying and derision, mockery and vitriol. It culminated in my being voted “the person most likely to have to pay for sex” at the high-school leavers’ assembly. The auditorium roared with laughter. The punchline was my body.

I have healed these wounds. But I wanted to write from the scars. I wanted to answer the question that I’ve been asked countless times in interviews and on podcasts. Why am I so fascinated by the subject of misogyny? Why did I write two books on this subject—one that is “not very fun” to think about, to borrow a perfect phrase from my four year-old.

The answer is that I used to shine. When I joined the all-boys’ school, I did drama, debate, piano. I took up space. I was a performer. But the misogyny that I faced—weaponized fatphobia—made me shrink from public scrutiny. I tried, futilely, for twenty years, to shrink my unruly body. I tried to hide from people’s eyes. And I know I am not alone in this.

I know that so many of us, for so many reasons, have trouble meeting others’ gaze. I wanted to write out of solidarity with those of us with non-normative bodies, in being fat, trans, visibly queer, visibly disabled, and so on. I wanted to write out of particular solidarity with those of us whose size and shape makes us the target of cruelty and bullying—and, I argue, systemic oppression. I wrote about the discrimination fat people face within the medical system, and in education, employment, dating, and transportation. I wrote about the pain of trying to make yourself fit an arbitrary mold that society has deemed fitting—even when your body refuses, indeed rails against the prospect. I wrote about the reams of data showing that diets do not work, that exercise—while incredibly good for you—typically fails to make us smaller. I wrote about disordered eating and my own struggle not to keep starving myself. I wrote about learning to embrace my own hunger.

The way writing the book felt to me was like a bodily gesture: lifting my head out of the shame that keeps us hunched and cowering. Looking up to meet others’ gaze to tell my own story and that of so many others who’ve had it so much worse than me. Saying “this is what it’s been like for me, how about you?” as a fat woman who has long hidden my body from others’ eyes. Who is still more comfortable using my voice inaudibly, silently, in the disembodied ways enabled by my writing.

I was so proud of what I’d done. And the first reactions to my book were, honestly, elating. Many of the blurbs made me cry. There were signs of impending coverage from all the major outlets. My amazing publishing team was excited. Everything looked ripe to bring my message—that fatphobia is systemic, and killing people who deserve so much better—to a wide public.

And then it all went wrong.