The Elephant in the Room by Tommy Tomlinson

The Elephant in the Room by Tommy Tomlinson was a an excellent memoir subtitled One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America. Tomlinson is someone whose writing I first posted on back in 2011 and in this book he gives a profound look at his life.

It's an entertaining read about struggling with his weight, but also much more than that, with the lyrical writing and content about his life and career reminiscent of one of my favorite books, The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer. Tomlinson covers well so much ground: the love provided by his parents, the South he grew up working poor in, the food of the region and what it meant to him, the pain of losing his sister Brenda, his wife Alix and the dog Fred they loved, as well as doing work for a living that thrills him, and with people he built powerful bonds with.

Specifically about his writing, Tomlinson covers time spent working on a newspaper and with writing friends Kevin Van Valkenburg, Chris Jones, Joe Posnanski, and Michael Schur, spending a year as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, and as he notes, trying to write big stories about little moments.

The stories told are rich and profound, including getting throat cancer at 29 years-old and how Tomlinson would save his last fast food receipt, just in case that would wind up being his last and he would stay forevermore away from the temptation. Additionally, the book struck me as very much having a sort of duality to it (which I love coming across in writing), with it an elegy of things lost and that he wasn't able to do and also a celebration of what he has and aspires to in what seems a great life, with the writing on it inspiring emotions ranging from entertained to sympathetic to jealous and to inspired.