City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

The weight of him, Ethel Rohan

eng

no index present

fiction

The weight of him

Ethel Rohan

At four hundred pounds, Billy can always count on food. From his earliest memories, he has loved foodâ s colors, textures and tastes. The way flavors go off in his mouth. How food keeps his mind still and his bad feelings quiet. Food has always made everything better, until the day Billyâ s beloved son Michael takes his own life. Billy determines to make a difference in Michaelâ s memory and undertakes a public weight-loss campaign, to raise money for suicide prevention, his first step in an ambitious plan to save himself, and to save others. However, Billyâ s dramatic crusade appalls his family, who want to simply try to go on. Despite his crushing detractors, Billy gains welcome allies: his community-at-large; a co-worker who lost his father to suicide; a filmmaker with his own dubious agenda; and a secret, miniature kingdom that Billy populates with the sub-quality dolls and soldiers he saves from disposal at the toy factory where he works