The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America
Written by Tommy Tomlinson
Narrated by Tommy Tomlinson
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
A “warm and funny and honest…genuinely unputdownable” (Curtis Sittenfeld) memoir chronicling what it’s like to live in today’s world as a fat man, from acclaimed journalist Tommy Tomlinson, who, as he neared the age of fifty, weighed 460 pounds and decided he had to change his life.
When he was almost fifty years old, Tommy Tomlinson weighed an astonishing—and dangerous—460 pounds, at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, unable to climb a flight of stairs without having to catch his breath, or travel on an airplane without buying two seats. Raised in a family that loved food, he had been aware of the problem for years, seeing doctors and trying diets from the time he was a preteen. But nothing worked, and every time he tried to make a change, it didn’t go the way he planned—in fact, he wasn’t sure that he really wanted to change.
In The Elephant in the Room, Tomlinson chronicles his lifelong battle with weight in a voice that combines the urgency of Roxane Gay’s Hunger with the intimacy of Rick Bragg’s All Over but the Shoutin’. He also hits the road to meet other members of the plus-sized tribe in an attempt to understand how, as a nation, we got to this point. From buying a Fitbit and setting exercise goals to contemplating the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas, America’s “capital of food porn,” and modifying his own diet, Tomlinson brings us along on a candid and sometimes brutal look at the everyday experience of being constantly aware of your size. Over the course of the book, he confronts these issues head-on and chronicles the practical steps he has to take to lose weight by the end.
“What could have been a wallow in memoir self-pity is raised to art by Tomlinson’s wit and prose” (Rolling Stone). Affecting and searingly honest, The Elephant in the Room is an “inspirational” (The New York Times) memoir that will resonate with anyone who has grappled with addiction, shame, or self-consciousness. “Add this to your reading list ASAP” (Charlotte Magazine).
Tommy Tomlinson
Tommy Tomlinson is the author of The Elephant in the Room, a memoir about being overweight in America. He’s the host of the podcast SouthBound in partnership with WFAE, Charlotte’s NPR station. He has written for publications including Esquire, ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, Garden & Gun, and many others. He spent twenty-three years as a reporter and local columnist for the Charlotte Observer, where he was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in commentary. His stories have been chosen twice for the Best American Sports Writing series (2012 and 2015) and he also appears in the anthology America’s Best Newspaper Writing. He teaches magazine writing at Wake Forest University and has taught at colleges, workshops, and conferences across the country. He also has a Substack called The Writing Shed. Tommy and his wife, Alix Felsing, live in Charlotte with Alix’s mom and a cat.
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Reviews for The Elephant in the Room
25 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stick it out, even though the author's voice is raspy. I quickly got used to it. This was honest, vulnerable, and at times both funny and sad, but never boring.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5There are surprisingly few weight loss journey books out there compared to the amount of diet books out there. This one was a suggestion after listening to "Presto" by Penn Jillette (which is excellent), and has a similar feel somewhat to this book. This book is slower in general and doesn't have any crazy or rapid weight loss, very slow and steady. The author is a professional journalist and the book is well written. The author also reads the audiobook and has a very distinct voice (explained in the book). He sounds very much like Christian Bale as Batman, respectfully. Good listen.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A really good read that sheds light on the struggles of being overweight, trying hard to lose weight, failing and picking yourself up. It leaves you feeling so much empathy for people struggling with their weight and provides the reader insights about how gradual lifestyle modification can make little differences that accumulate to big ones eventually.
The author was humorous in his writing so it was a fun read.