- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Virago (5 Jun 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1844080773
- ISBN-13: 978-1844080779
- Product Dimensions: 12.6 x 17.9 x 2.2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,093,950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
As post-modern recovery memoirs go, Food and Loathing, Betsy Lerner's account of compulsive overeating and decades' worth of yo-yo dieting, may strike the casual reader as considerably less compelling than, say, Elizabeth Wurtzel's similarly toned though far more solipsistic and seemingly endless diary of her affair with Ritalin, Now, More, Again. (The editor of Wurtzel's breakthrough Gen X memoir, Prozac Nation, Lerner figured prominently as a character in the sequel.) Lerner's admission that "I am powerless over Hostess cakes, and my life has become unmanageable", may not seem to equate with the far more harrowing revelations recounted in so many gripping first-person dependency confessionals. But there are potentially hundreds of thousands of readers (both men and women, though there is a bit of a Bridget Jones-like assumption here that Lerner is writing primarily for the former) with whom the author will strike many a poignant chord as she charts a lifelong battle with her weight.
Lerner takes us from those all-too-familiar and universally mortifying school days (the book opens in 1972, when she was a 12-year-old being weighed in front of her sixth-grade class in the gymnasium), through twentysomething years filled with sadness, unrequited love and a pioneering membership in Overeaters Anonymous, to a bout with suicidal depression that resulted in a six-month stay at New York State Psychiatric Institute. Like Wurtzel, Lerner is at her best when she is turning her sarcastic and unsparing sense of humour on herself. ("In college, when I first encountered Descartes, it took me no time to translate his famous dictum into something I could relate to: I weigh x, therefore I am shit", she writes.) But she also shares with her celebrated protégé a recurring confusion between trying to relate with her readers via unflinching honesty and simply sharing too much uninteresting or irrelevant information. --Jim DeRogatis, Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
This sharp memoir is a must (OK! MAGAZINE )
This book recounts her experiences with warmth and wit (IRISH EXAMINER )
The subtitle, 'A Sad and Funny Memoir Of A Life Counted Out In Calories', says it all. (GOOD HOUSEKEEPING )
A powerful memoir about food obsession and depression, aimed at every woman who's ever tortured herself over food and weight loss. (WOMAN'S OWN )
This book recounts her experiences with warmth and wit (IRISH EXAMINER )
The subtitle, 'A Sad and Funny Memoir Of A Life Counted Out In Calories', says it all. (GOOD HOUSEKEEPING )
A powerful memoir about food obsession and depression, aimed at every woman who's ever tortured herself over food and weight loss. (WOMAN'S OWN )
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
33 reviews
41 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Funny, Smart, Compulsively Readable
21 Jan 2003
Format:Hardcover
This is a terrific read. Lerner has such a light touch, and such a delightfully wicked sense of humor, that anyone will empathize with her story: she's not just a fat girl looking for love and attention, but an extremely intelligent and self-aware person struggling with questions of meaning and worth. Her shocking swings up and down the scale are, for Lerner, swings between life and death, and between meaning and meaninglessness, hope and hopelessness. This memoir is one of the best I've read.
I can think of about five people I want to buy this book for -- it would make a wonderful gift for anyone who's struggled with weight, depression, or any kind of existential angst.
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Insightful for the skinny, comforting for the fat
12 Feb 2003
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Betsy Lerner, has done us all a service. Those of us who are thin and have never struggled with weight, get our eyes opened as to what the other "world" is like. To quote a blurb on the back of the book "It broke my heart in 1,000 places". And those of us who have friends and relatives who struggle with being more than 100 lbs overweight, will want to rush out and buy this book for them, because here FINALLY is a book written by a "FAT" (actually former fat) person who describes in detail the pain "FAT" people experience.
Betsy is good at drawing you into her world, and making you feel as if you are observing her struggle (almost as if you were seeing it played out on the big screen.) The fact that she overcame her stay in the mental institution and the stint with the grossly inept therapist, and then rose to the place she is now, is encouraging to say the least.
I recommend this book for anyone who knows anyone who has ever been in O.A. And to anyone who would like to know the pain of the most discriminated against group in "American Society".
And of course, for those of us authors, who want to know what our editors, and agents really think of us, I highly recommend Betsy's other book THE FOREST FOR THE TREES.
Both books are good reads. Impossible to put down, once you start reading them. And the desire to tell other's about them, is...quite frankly, complelling.
Marsha Marks
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
A memoir of a young woman's mental illness and self-hatred.
23 Feb 2003
Format:Hardcover
"Food and Loathing," by Betsy Lerner, is ostensibly about a young woman's eating disorder and how it affects her self-esteem and her ability to cope with life. Lerner begins her memoir at the age of twelve. She is an affluent and bright girl from a loving family. However, Lerner is self-conscious about her weight and she believes that if she could only learn how to control her eating, she would be blissfully happy.
Lerner's adolescent years are filled with cigarettes, joints, a membership in Overeaters Anonymous and a fruitless relationship with an unsympathetic psychiatrist. Nothing that Lerner tries brings her peace of mind and she eventually sinks into a serious depression. She frequently indulges in binge eating. It takes a stint in a mental hospital and a caring psychiatrist to help Lerner diagnose her problem and gain some control over her life.
"Food and Loathing" is a searing and honest portrayal of a lost soul. Lerner floats unhappily through life for years, with no handle on what is wrong with her or how she can bring herself back from oblivion. She learns the hard way that the pleasures of life are too precious to give up without a fight. Although Lerner's book has little new to say either about eating disorders or mental illness, it is a competently written book that will appeal to readers who are interested in these two subjects.
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