FAT OFF, FAT ON

A Nigerian American writer and culture critic chronicles her life and experiences as “a dark-skinned, fat Black woman who is bisexual and disabled.”

Kent grew up in a “shitty family” in which she became the target of a cruel, womanizing father who hounded her for being too fat and too Black. Her mother’s church became another source of oppression, and she was bombarded with “gender essentialist propaganda” and shaming from the “fatphobia-fueled purity culture.” The author’s eventual “escape” to the University of Chicago brought with it struggles against a privileged (White) system that forced her off the pre-med track her parents favored and into English and media studies that were more “my lane.” Even as her self-esteem improved, Kent still battled lingering depression, later diagnosed as bipolar disorder, which caused her to gain weight. Then she suffered a debilitating sports injury and fell into an even darker place. “Internalized ableism and internalized fatphobia landed me in a weird space with my physical therapist,” she writes, “and sent me down a spiral that almost ended with me dying by suicide.” Fortunately, during the healing process, Kent found lifesaving friendships and began exploring her sexuality. A post-collegiate move to California brought her into unexpected contact with a bisexual older sister, who helped her understand how “the psychological, spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical effects of sexual abuse complicate how Black girls…navigate the world.” It also became the place where a crush on an old college friend returned “like a UTI” and become the love that transformed the distorted notions of beauty and sexuality that still haunted her. Candid and unabashedly snarky, Kent’s narrative about surviving trauma, racism, homophobia, and misogyny—and learning how to honor the “fat-ass body” she had been taught to hate—is both courageous and fabulously outrageous.

A frank, fierce, and funny memoir and social critique.