And this is written about a subject Shriver knows only too well; it is widely documented that Shriver's brother Greg was morbidly obese although she refutes that Big Brother is biographical. The tension increased between Pandora and Fletcher, who became tired of this houseguest who broke his delicate handcrafted furniture and who did not appear to want to make any changes in his life. Obesity , because it is a condition which is easily observed by everyone and thus is a condition which is public and yet at the same time is intensely personal. I know nothing about the siblings' childhood that would lead me to believe they were, as they narrator insists, each other's crutches and very intertwined during a difficult time. For the past several days I have recommended this book to family and friends, even though it contains a totally unrealistic description of how much heavy people eat, and how they eat it, and a dangerous selection of fad crash diet.

Life so many Shriver narrators, she is somewhat brash, refreshingly honest and insightful, and beautifully formed. This is a novel about the morbidly obese and it is the anonymity of the overweight and obese that, for me, makes this so sad. Enter Pandora's washed-up, jazz pianist brother, Edison Appaloosa, an oversized presence even before he gained hundreds of pounds. She runs a successful business with her fantastic Baby Monotonous Dolls ( I hope the author has patented the idea,they would be sure to be a real life success) and is something of a rut when we meet her. So, the points of view that Shriver expresses through her characters may not be perfectly in sync with everyone's; however, I think she does an amazing job at capturing some of the more common opinions on the topic.

She lives in the Iowa Corn Belt with her husband of seven years, Fletcher Feuerbach, an underappreciated furniture craftsman, and his two teenage children.

The story is narrated by Pandora - a forty-something woman who lives with her husband Fletcher and her two teenage step-children. There are glimpses of good writing, but overall, I had had my fill of this book well before it ended. So I was looking forward to reading her new book "Big Brother," particularly since it deals with an issue that (unfortunately) is near and dear to my heart - being overweight.Next, in a scene that may be one of the most unbearably and unsparingly visceral I've encountered in a work of fiction, he evacuates his bowels for the first time in too long. It's like one of my students writing, thinking that the more SAT words cramped into a sentence the better.