Writer Kit Reed read from her latest book “Thinner Than Thou” on Tuesday at the Yale University bookstore before friends, students in her online writing course and members of the Yale community.
“Thinner Than Thou,” which was released in June by Tor Books, is a comical story of the friendship between Annie, an anorexic teenager and her morbidly obese friend, Kelly. The two friends meet at Sylphania, a camp where brutal force is used to correct the detainees’ eating disorders.
While Reed said that some critics consider her new novel to be a satire, Reed calls the novel a dark comedy. While “Thinner Than Thou” treats the subjects of obesity and eating disorders with humor, there is a moving message behind the novel.
“What I think reaches most readers [of this novel] is that nobody, that’s nobody, is a 100 percent altogether satisfied with the way they look—too fat, too thin, too short, bad hair—our insecurities are endless and that isn’t fair!” Reed said.
The inspiration for the novel, Reed said, came from an overweight acquaintance of hers.
“Obesity is a national disease,” Reed said. “There are also a lot of cases of anorexia, where skinny people think they are disgustingly fat. What about our society makes us think this way about being fat?
At her appearance at Yale, Reed read selections from chapters 11 and 14 of her novel. The first selection was from a point in the novel were Annie is getting chastised by one of her overseers at the concentration camp, thinking she has been forsaken by her parents.
”In a way, that’s what I am getting at with this novel, and what I think people are going to like about it; we’re all in it—and we’re funny,“ Reed said.
The novel begins with Annie’s parents shipping her off to the concentration camp in the middle of the night. Annie’s twin sisters wake up to find their sister has disappeared.
”I began [the novel] with the twins,“ Reed said. ”I heard their voices and knew what they sounded like.“ According to Reed, the novel took eight months to complete.
Reed has been busy promoting the new book and also giving readings. Last Saturday, Reed read an excerpt at a WesVolunteer meeting at the Woodhead Lounge at an Alumni Relations talk for fundraising.
Reed has also recently read at the KGB Bar in New York, the South Street Seaport and in Milwaukee, Wis. for the National Woman’s Studies Conference.
Reed is the author of novels ”Captain Grownup,“ ”Fort Privilege,“ ”Catholic Girls,“ ”J. Eden,“ ”Little Sisters of the Apocalypse,“ ”Gone“ and ”Twice Burned.“ She has also been the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship.
Reed is looking forward to her forthcoming collection of short stories under the title of ”The Dog of Truth.“
Leave a Reply