Fat Boy Swim

Fat children still make popular targets in fiction as well as in real life, with J K Rowling a particular offender, both with the Dursley boy and with Malfoy’s thuggish henchmen at Hogwarts. A few writers have produced books taking the side of the fat, notably Judy Blume in Blubber, but mostly with nothing like the same success. This is therefore a fictional battle that still needs to be fought, and Forde’s novel makes an effective case against the jocular but cruel bullying endorsed by Roald Dahl and many other authors past and present when it comes to getting at the overweight. Jimmy, her stout hero, eats to excess because he is miserable about his pariah social status, so creating a vicious circle that can only get worse. But he is saved by Father Joe, a Catholic priest turned sports coach, who helps Jimmy realise he is in fact a brilliant swimmer. Set in Scotland with broad dialect to match, this novel is written with force and a real sense of anger. There is always the risk that readers will learn new and even more diabolical ways of insulting the fat from the actions of the chief bullies in these pages. But hopefully more will now feel ashamed for ever having enjoyed hounding the obese and could well think twice before doing so again.