Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs by Cheryl Peck

A gay Erma Bombeck meets A Girl Named Zippy in this delightful debut about the misadventures of a woman of size. Cheryl Peck has stories to tell-about her cats, about her family, and about what it's like to be a gay woman of size living in the heartland. There's the story of the time she hit her kid sister in the head with a rock. Then there's the time her father gave her swimming lessons-by throwing her into the water. When she came shrieking and spluttering to the surface, he said, 'Good-she can swim.' There are the reasons 300 pound Cheryl has become an inspirational goddess in her gym. There are universal stories about a daughter's love for her mother and father. Cheryl Peck unfolds all these stories with a healthy sense of humor and intelligent wit in a book that reads like fiction and explores the themes of family, growing up, love, and loss. The stories in this collection are about seemingly unremarkable events that make a life-but like fat girls sitting on lawn chairs, these are events that don't let go.