He is the epitome of health—or a walking time bomb. He is oversexed—or sexless. He is jolly—or hiding the tears of a clown. He is the picture of wealth and plenty—or the bloated, malnourished emblem of poverty. He is the fat man—a cultural icon, a social enigma, a pressing medical issue—and he is the subject of this remarkably rich book.

The figures that Sander L. Gilman considers, from the ugly fat man with the beautiful sylph trapped inside to the smart fat boy to the aging body desirous of rejuvenation, appear and reappear in different guises throughout Western culture. And as is often true of marginal cases, they serve to define the shifting center of our dreams and beliefs. A tentative exploration in the world of male body fantasies, Gilman’s book asks how the representation of the fat man alters with time and alters how men relate to their own bodies and the bodies of others, both men and women. His examples—ranging from Santa Claus to Sancho Panza, from Falstaff to Babe Ruth, from Nero Wolfe to Al Roker—illustrate the complexity perennially associated with fat men. From discourses about normality to the playing fields of baseball, from Greek male beauty to the fat detective, Gilman’s book examines and illuminates how cultures have imagined and portrayed the fat boy.

Sander L. Gilman is Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Medicine at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His many works include Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery and Smart Jews: The Construction of the Image of Jewish Superior Intelligence (Nebraska 1996).

"Gilman opens a valuable conversation about the cultural history of obesity that examines how we have come to understand—and misunderstand—the condition."—New York Times Book Review

"Forcefully written and very well timed. . . . Entertaining."—Elaine Showalter, The Times Literary Supplement

"Gilman uncovers the surprising complexity associated with fat men in a clear and succinct manner."—Library Journal

“This amusing historical and literary review ranges widely, covering subjects such as Santa Claus, the Nutty Professor, and gastric bypass surgery.”—Choice

“A welcome survey of representations of male obesity in western culture. Historian Sander Gilman uses character studies of what he terms ‘fat boys’ from antiquity to the present, to ‘negotiate the complexities of defining the healthy and the ill.’”—Carolyn Thomas de la Peña, American Studies