Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes ANNOTATION
The daily class discussions about the nature of man, the existence of God, abortion, organized religion, suicide and other contemporary issues serve as a backdrop for a high-school senior's attempt to answer a friend's dramatic cry for help.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
The daily class discussions about the nature of man, the existence of God, abortion, organized religion, suicide and other contemporary issues serve as a backdrop for a high-school senior's attempt to answer a friend's dramatic cry for help.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Such superlatives as ``riveting'' and ``powerful'' can only hint at the craftsmanship on display in this transcendent story of love, loyalty and courage. While probing such issues as friendship, free speech and moral values, Crutcher ( Chinese Handcuffs ; Stotan! ) tells a tale whose mordant humor, poignancy and suspense pack a breathtaking wallop. A social outcast in junior high due to his excessive weight, narrator Eric Calhoune found a kindred spirit in Sarah Byrnes, whose face and hands were hideously disfigured in a childhood accident. Now a senior and considerably slimmed down through competitive swimming (though still aptly called ``Moby''), Eric remains fiercely devoted to his friend, whose caustic tongue is her only protection from life's inequities. When Sarah abruptly stops talking and is committed to a mental ward, Eric is compelled to take action to help her, but quickly finds that he is in over his head. He risks their friendship by breaking his vow of secrecy and enlisting others' aid--help that comes from such unlikely quarters as a former bully, Eric's swim coach and, most surprisingly, his mother's seemingly wimpy boyfriend. A subplot centering on a self-righteous teammate drives home the point that nothing is as it appears on the surface, and leads to Eric being caught between his menacing vice-principal and the even more malevolent Mr. Byrnes--with spine-tingling results. Superb plotting, extraordinary characters and crackling narrative make this novel one to be devoured in a single unforgettable sitting. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)
Children's Literature - Susie Wilde
After years of fighting humiliation for being overweight, Eric Calhoune, alias Moby, begins swimming in high school. Moby describes his absent, overweight father, "(he's) not a guy who should have gone light on desserts and between meal snacks...(but) a guy who should have spread Glue on his lips before showing his face outside his bedroom each morning." Weight and wit have bonded him in long-term friendship with Sarah Byrnes, a girl who has faced the shame of horrible facial burn scars she's borne since the age of three. Against a swimming backdrop Crutcher places the issues of shame, narrow-mindedness, and abuse. Once the story takes hold you move along at such a rapid clip that by the end you're holding on for dear life.
The ALAN Review - Elizabeth Poe
Once again, Chris Crutcher plunges his readers into life's tough issues within a compelling story filled with human compassion. Eric Calhoun and Sarah Byrnes, social outcasts due to Eric's junk-food-fed obesity and Sarah's burn-scarred face, form a childhood friendship dedicated to heaping revenge on those who persecute them. When Eric joins the high-school swim team and begins to lose his ugly pounds, he overeats to keep himself fat so Sarah will not be alone in her misery. But he stops binging when Sarah threatens to beat him senseless. Later, Sarah loses her grit, withdraws from the world, and is hospitalized. Eric verifies his friendship by helping her deal with the physical and psychological pain she has suffered since early childhood. Crutcher handles difficult topics such as abuse, abortion, and religious rigidity with his characteristic intelligence, humor, and empathy.
School Library Journal
Gr 8 UpAn obese boy and a disfigured girl suffer the emotional scars of years of mockery at the hands of their peers. They share a hard-boiled view of the world until events in their senior year hurl them in very different directions. A story about a friendship with staying power, written with pathos and pointed humor. (Mar. 1993)
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