Kit Reed Thinner Than Thou

Thinner Than Thou

Kit Reed

Tor, Jun 2005, $13.95, 336 pp.

ISBN: 076531195X

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 storyline 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