Thinner Than Thou

Reverend Earl began his preaching as infomercials, but quickly resonated with a population struggling with eating disorders. He simply offered his followers opportunities to be thin without the risks of anorexia, bulimia and constant fad diets by joining his Crossed Triceps health clubs. Soon organized religion fades bowing to the new God of Thinness. Earl's Dedicated Sisters become zealots spreading more than the word on thinness; they are rumored to abduct problem teens taking them inside the sanctuary for cleansing. Though their parents hint they know what happened to their daughter anorexic Annie Abercrombie who has disappeared from her home, they tell nothing to their twin sons Betz and Danny. Upset, the two brothers and Annie's boyfriend Dave assume the frightening local chapter of the Dedicated Sisters kidnapped Annie. They plan to free her. Their mom has second thoughts that she blew it when she turned in her daughter to the dread Deds and joins in the quest to free her leaving her selfish spouse behind. Annie teams up with obese Kelly in an attempt to break out of the Deds incarceration. This biting satire rips into the religious obsessive fervor to be thin at all costs including health. The story line takes no prisoners with its popular obese strippers, health clubs taking over religious edifices and bringing in many more patrons, Afterfat heaven where you can divinely dine on anything and everything but remain thin, and the final solution for the elderly amongst other acerbic shots at the me society. Mindful of Swift's A Modest Proposal, readers who appreciate a cutting edge nightmarish future that applies hyperbole to the present reality will join the Reverend's THINNER THAN THOU movement. Harriet Klausner

Anybody here a hundred per cent happy with their body image? ANYBODY? How did we get so bent about the way we look? Whether you're overweight or over wrinkled or just plain don't look like those hunks and hunkettes you see on TV, the Reverend Earl in this crazy look at the American cult where body image is the new Answer to Everything is going to ring bells. Things in America according to the Reverend Earl have gotten so bad that anorectic girls -- and fat ones-- get stuffed away in "convents" where the Dedicated Sisters force feed or starve them, depending. This girl Annie meets up with fat Kelly and you've gotta feel for both of them. And Annie's mom, because the Reverend Earl thinks she's too fat and her husband says she needs a face lift. There's another thread about a fat guy trapped in the Reverend Earl's weight loss spa. There's plenty here about everything you need to know about. It's either funny or scary. Or both.

What is perhaps most disturbing about Reed's cautionary tale of the pursuit of phyisical perfect gone awry is not the horrific ends to which her characters go to appease the insatiable god that stares back at them from the mirror every morning, but rather, that no matter how outrageous the plot becomes, no matter how wild her characters' acts of good or evil may appear, we never have to work too hard to believe what's going on.By turns dramatic, hilarious, ghastly and gripping, a kind of suburban magical realism runs through Reed's pages like blood, infusing the story with both the intimate and the fantastic while she slices into our egos like a knife so sharp you don't know you've been cut till you hit the floor.One of those rare books that will surprise both an author's veteran fans and those just discovering her, Thinner Than Thou is a must-have with an epilogue written on the happy meal boxes and weight-loss pill bottles of an entire nation.

THINNER THAN THOU may depict a futuristic dystopia, but a great deal of it is uncomfortably close to home as it takes America's obsession with weight and beauty and stretches it only a little to give us a portrait of the horrible place at the end of the highway down which we are now speeding.With the evolution of such plastic surgery shows as THE SWAN, surgery and liposuction are being touted as acceptable, if not expected processes in every day life. Weight has been an issue in the media since at least the Sixties and with Hollywood stars now starving themselves to create an even thinner ideal, the idea of a normal body has become skewed to the grotesque.Thinner Than Thou celebrates those who have been forced into these ideals and the torture required to obtain them and, despite crippling disabilities (anorexia, morbid obesity), these heroes have the strength and the will to fight back. Every aspect of America's obsession with food, from self-starvation to eating contests to the everyday torture of talking ourselves out of that extra cookie is explored and celebrated, for this bleak view of the future is taken with a grain of salt and, more importantly, a fabulous sense of humor.Ms. Reed has long been a spokeswoman for the American Woman, but she may just have been promoted to being the spokeswoman for the American consciousness. A great book.

Failing to conform to the "ideal" body shape already FEELS like a crime in America, so it's easy to imagine a time when it will actually be a crime. Beauty isn't everything...it's the ONLY thing. So don't be surprised when gym memberships, facelifts and weight-reducing herbal supplements become compulsory. Taking on the beauty obsession from several different angles, Reed provides a fresh perspective on something that preoccupies most people, whether they admit it or not. Thinner Than Thou has several vibrant, well-rounded characters and a simple plot that keeps you involved with each of the story-lines. The only place I found it to drift from the realm of the possible was in its discussion of religion. I strongly disagree that Americans will ever replace religion with the cult of beauty, and I cite the dozens of faith-based diets as evidence enough of that. This book would have gotten a solid 5 stars from me, if not for the ending. Like many satirists and social commentators, Reed isn't sure where to take us to provide a satisfying resolution. Though the very last line is excellent, the preceding climax rings false.