I, Fatty

I just finished this engaging book. Actually, I had trouble putting it down and doing other things. I had just read Ace Atkins, "Devil's Garden" (which I highly recommend to anyone) and found this book to be a great addition to learning about Roscoe as young boy who finds his way to true financial and Hollywood success only to be "hounded" by inner demons of child hood memories. But put the demons aside, the book really develops the character into a full blown man with little education and a fine mind. He never loses touch his "inner child" and finds fun and amusement along the way. Totally enjoyable.

It's a fictional autobiography (although apparently exhaustingly researched - there's a lengthy list of source material in the back) of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, one of the silent film era's biggest stars. He was also one of the era's most infamous men, having been falsely accused of the rape of a woman which lead to her death. Honestly, I got the book more because I have read Stahl's other books and loved them. I didn't know much about Arbuckle other than that Chris Farley wanted to play Arbuckle in a movie around the time that Farley died. In any case, this was a great book, and a little out of character for Stahl. His other books are somewhere in between James Ellroy and Chuck Palahniuk, which is to say completely debauched and thoroughly offensive. In this one, the debauchery remains, but there's a kind of sweetness and naivety to Arbuckle's voice that I didn't at all expect. Even if, like me, you don't know much about Arbuckle, like me, you might find it to be an engaging and quick read.

This is a great book written in an engaging style. It speaks of the Hollywood of the silent film era and today. Jerry Stahl shows us the highs and lows of the Hollywood stars' world, and holds up a mirror to examine the attitudes we see even today.

This book is as, stated in reviews, a "faux-memoir" and as such should not be treated like a precious historical artifact--it's "faction" and damn good faction at that. The author has a great take on what really happened that Labor Day weekend in San Francisco, Fatty's fall from grace, and his ability to eventually rise up again. Plus his version of Fatty's hideous childhood and horrid father gives a great insight into the man's psyche and physique-- And it doesn't matter that this isn't a blow by blow rehash and meticulous recitation of articles in a dry fashion like so many lifeless biographies. I FATTY is a vivd version of a super star's life, told by one of country's most entertaining and original writers.

'A little tramp stops being a tramp when the camera stops rolling. But a Fatty stays fat' Until I read Jerry Stahl's almost unbearably beautiful faux memoir on Fatty Arbuckle, all I knew about the silent movie star was what I'd read in 'Hollywood Babylon' many years earlier. The first Movie-star in history, ruined by the accusation that he raped and murdered a young starlet with the help of a Coca-Cola bottle. Stahl crawls into the mind of a battered, dirt-poor little boy, hated by his father. After ditching school to watch vaudeville shows, he soon stumbles on the stage himself. But he becomes famous for what he loathes himself most for: for being fat. He stuffs himself in baby-clothes and drag and soon matches Charlie Chaplin's and Buster Keaton's popularity and public adulation. But he becomes famous for what he loathes himself most for: for being fat. It is well known that he drank too much. But his Heroin-addiction was something that is not that well known. Even though he was acquitted after three trials, he never recovered. Stahl draws a brilliant parallel to the first victim of the media driven Hollywood scandal. No matter what's the truth; the public has decided that this fat and disgustingly funny troll did it. Stahl makes you feel the anguish and the self-hatred like nobody else, but he also makes us love Fatty Arbuckle.