Dietland (Walker)

Dietland 
Sarai Walker, 2015
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780544704831


Summary
The diet revolution is here. And it’s armed.

Plum Kettle does her best not to be noticed, because when you’re fat, to be noticed is to be judged. Or mocked. Or worse.

With her job answering fan mail for a popular teen girls’ magazine, she is biding her time until her weight-loss surgery. Only then can her true life as a thin person finally begin.

But when Plum notices she’s being followed by a mysterious woman in colorful tights and combat boots, she finds herself falling down a rabbit hole into the world of Calliope House, a community of women who live life on their own terms. Reluctant but intrigued, Plum agrees to a series of challenges that force her to deal with the real costs of becoming “beautiful.”

At the same time, a dangerous guerilla group begins to terrorize a world that mistreats women, and as Plum grapples with her own personal struggles, she becomes entangled in a sinister plot. The consequences are explosive.

Part coming-of-age story, part revenge fantasy, Dietland is a bold, original, and funny debut novel that takes on the beauty industry, gender inequality, and our weight loss obsession—from the inside out, and with fists flying. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Rasied—States of Utah and California, USA
• Education—M.A., Bennington College; Ph.D., University of London
• Currently—lives in New York City area


Sarai Walker received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Bennington College. As a magazine writer, her articles appeared in national publications, including Seventeen and Mademoiselle. She subsequently served as an editor and writer for Our Bodies, Ourselves, before moving to London and then Paris to complete a Ph.D. She currently lives in the New York City area. Dietland is her first novel. (From the publisher.)

In her words:
First things first: My first name is pronounced sa-RAY, not Sarah or sa-RYE or Sari or Sherry or Sarie or Sierra.

I'm a writer and part-time English professor living in the New York City area.

I grew up in California and Utah. Fun fact: In high school, my short story “Pink Champagne” won first place in Sassy magazines’s fiction contest.

I moved to NYC to attend college and began writing for women's and teen magazines such as Mademoiselle and Seventeen. [At Seventeen, I liked to look up Sylvia Plath’s articles in the archives.] I moved to London for a year, earned a master’s degree in English, then moved back to NYC and continued writing for magazines and living the glamorous life of an office temp in the publishing industry.

In my late twenties, I moved to Boston to do other things, including working as a writer at Harvard and then working as a writer and editor on the 2005 edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves. During this time, I also earned an M.F.A. in creative writing and literature from Bennington College.

In my early thirties, I sold almost all of my belongings and moved to London to complete a Ph.D. in English at the University of London. I actually lived in Bloomsbury during much of my time in London. Yes, Bloomsbury. I now have a fancy title and a lot of student loans. During my Ph.D., I spent periods of time living in Paris, and used to speak French pretty well, but now I’ve lost most of it. I wrote most of Dietland while living in Europe.
My Ph.D. research focused on normative femininity of the body; the fat female body; consciousness-raising and the "personal is political" in feminist practice and as a literary aesthetic; American second-wave feminist history and fiction; "chick lit"; critical theory, particularly Michel Foucault. I read a lot of amazing books during my Ph.D., but if I had to choose the one that influenced me the most, I’d choose this one.

I’ve recently begun work on my second novel. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Walker’s first novel leaves chick lit in the pixie dust, treading the rougher terrain of radical critique and shadowy conspiracies — territory closer to Rachel Kushner than Helen Fielding
New York Magazine


If Amy Schumer turned her subversive feminist sketches into a novel, dark on the inside but coated with a glossy, palatable sheen, it would probably look a lot like Dietland—a thrilling, incendiary manifesto disguised as a beach read...It’s a giddy revenge fantasy that will shake up your thinking and burrow under your skin, no matter its size. (Grade A.)
Entertainment Weekly


I've never dropped anyone out of a helicopter. But Dietland resonated with the part of me that wants, just once, to deck a street harasser. At the very least, I wish an incurable itch upon everyone who has catcalled me on the street. I wish food poisoning and public embarrassment on everyone I've heard make a rape joke. I wish toothache and headlice and too-small shoes upon every stranger who has told me to smile. Which is to say, sometimes I forget I'm angry, but I am. Dietland is a complicated, thoughtful, and powerful expression of that same anger.
Annalisa Quinn - NPR.org


Plum Kettle, a ghostwriter for a popular teen mag, is lured into a subversive sisterhood in this riotous first novel. Finally, the feminist murder mystery/makeover story we’ve been waiting for.
Oprah Magazine


[Ms. Walker's] writing can spit with venom, at the rigid expectations of women’s weight and sexuality...As a social commentary, Dietland is no shrill tirade. Ms. Walker captures the misery of failing to fit in, to fit into the right clothes, to fit in with the right people and their expectations.
Economist


At 300 lbs., Plum Kettle lives for the days when gastric bypass will help her shed her extra girth—until she's challenged to shed her misery instead. Witty and wise.
People


Sarai Walker deftly marries body insecurities and humor in her satirical debut. At 300 pounds, Plum declares a diet fail and concedes to weight-loss surgery. But when she meets a radical feminist, she begins to try on confidence for size.
US Weekly


[Dietland’s] message resonates…It’s vanishingly rare to see a novel that looks like the much-maligned "chick lit"—and sometimes reads like it—so gleefully censorious of rape culture… If you’ve lived in this culture—if you’ve ever been a young woman who is trying to eat so little or eat so much that she disappears…you may take some cold comfort from Dietland, and its opportunities for vicarious revenge.
Guardian (UK)


In a confident, daring first novel, Sarai Walker mixes satire and mystery as she holds a magnifying glass over Western culture's objectification of the female gender. The result is combustion of enormously entertaining and thought-provoking proportion...Walker's brazen approach to Dietland carries a strength that will ignite readers' passionate responses. The novel is unflinchingly blunt, depicting raw emotion and uncomfortable realities. Walker writes beautifully, with natural dialogue and powerful characters. Her first-rate entrance into fiction is sure to spark the conversation she--and Plum--feel their audience needs to have."
Shelf Awareness


(Starred review.) Plum Kettle likes living under the radar—pretty hard to do when you're 300 pounds or so.... But someone's onto her—someone who pushes back against Plum's efforts to be invisible, who anonymously leaves Plum a book that challenges all she's ever thought to be true about women and weight loss. —Amy Brozio-Andrews, Albany P.L., NY
Library Journal


Through her protagonist, debut novelist Walker gives a plaintive yet powerful voice to anyone who has struggled with body image, feelings of marginalization, and sexual manipulation. Her robust satire also vibrantly redefines what it means to be a woman in contemporary society.
Booklist


(Starred review.) Hilarious, surreal, and bracingly original, Walker's ambitious debut avoids moralistic traps to achieve something rarer: a genuinely subversive novel that's also serious fun.... Part Fight Club, part feminist manifesto, an offbeat and genre-bending novel that aims high—and delivers.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these talking points to start a discussion for Dietland:

1. In an NPR interview, Sarai Walker said that fat bodies are "politicized bodies."

I don't mean political in terms of a political party; I mean structures of power—certain people having power and privilege. And so Plum comes to realize that her fat body, the mistreatment she receives because of it, is a political issue.

What exactly does Walker mean? Do thin people have more prestige than fat people; are fat people less empowered? Do you agree with her?

2. How does Plum allow her body size to determine her identity? Is that common for most of us, men as well as women? Consider this statement by the author, in same the NPR interview:

I think young girls are taught from a very young age—there's a lot of emphasis placed on "You look pretty," "You look cute." ... [A] tremendous amount of your value and your worth as a person is how you look.... [I]f we just look at our culture—we look at advertisements, we look at magazines, TV shows, movies—I mean that's really what's in our face all the time.

3. Talk about the ways in which Plum changes by the novel's end?

4. Do you consider Dietland a feminist novel? Is it a serious novel? Why or why not? Is Walker's message: "accept your body size and move on"? Or is it something, well, more subversive? Does humor make a difference in the book's seriousness (or lack of it)?

5. Other than appearance and body size, what else does Walker's satire take aim at in this book?

6. What part, if any, of Dietland resonates with you personally?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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