Fat People, by Bill Schubart; Published by Magic Hill LLC., Hinesburg; 2010; 213 pages softbound; $15.

Fat People is Bill Schubart’s second collection of short stories. The first, The Lamoille Stories, is also available. reviewed by Joseph Gresser

One of the few remaining socially acceptable prejudices is that directed against fat people.  Just as foreigners and nonwhite people once turned up in popular entertainments as objects of fun, so the appearance of an overweight actor on screen is usually a signpost warning of comedy ahead.

There is little comedy in Fat People, Bill Schubart’s aptly named collection of short stories.  Instead, Mr. Schubart delves into the struggles of people for whom food provides not only nourishment, but also comfort, companionship and, in some instances, death.

Mr. Schubart, a Lamoille County resident, is a Vermont heavyweight.  One of the founders of Philo Records, a company that produced wonderful folk-tinged albums in the 1970s and early 1980s, he went on to found and run Resolution, Inc. a company engaged in all aspects of Internet commerce.

In addition to his business activities, Mr. Schubart has also found time to serve as a director for many of the state’s important nonprofit organizations, including the Vermont Arts Council, Vermont Public Radio, Circus Smirkus, and the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.  He recently served on a three-person committee that made recommendations for a revamped state tax code.

As he admits in the foreword to his new collection, Mr. Schubart is also a heavyweight in the literal sense.

The 14 stories in Fat People are filled with detail that could arise only from a combination of life experience and empathetic imagination.

For example, the central character in “Cliff at Deane” spends a miserable summer at camp, subject to merciless teasing because his fat gives him a girlish look.  Later in the story we feel his devastation after he is told by his stern grandmother that he resembles a hermaphrodite.

The boy only feels the full sting of the taunt when, alone in his room, he is able to look up the unfamiliar word in a dictionary.

“Father Bob at the Beach,” reveals the sad life of a clergyman who entered holy orders in large part because he was sure that his morbid obesity would forever bar him from experiencing the physical love that he craved.

Sent by a superior to a weight reduction program, Father Bob reluctantly hauls his bulk across a beach and into the ocean.  There, to his great joy, he discovers that the natural buoyancy of his 700-pound frame makes him feel weightless.

Mr. Schubart’s stripped down prose style puts the reader face to face with his characters’ woes and pleasures.  Those pleasures center around the table, or more to the point, to the spaces the characters create for themselves where they can secretly satisfy their caloric cravings.

Not one of Mr. Schubart’s characters is happy living in his or her body.  Most struggle with their desire for food, and in one or two cases manage to triumph over appetite.

A man on his way to meet what he hopes will be a new love, walks through an airport in “Hunger.”  As he passes through the long corridors, the smells of baked goods, fried meats and elaborately topped pizzas call to him insistently, but the man is able to resist even the temptation of a final chocolate chip cookie cart and be on his way with a light heart.

Only one of Mr. Schubart’s stories is explicitly didactic.  A patient admits himself to a rehab center divided into three areas, one devoted to treating people for drug abuse, one focused on alcoholism, and the last for overeating.

The patient, and the reader, hear lectures about how some people become addicted to food.  One of the instructors reminds his audience that while drug addicts and alcoholics merely have to stay away from those substances, food is a necessary part of life and a never ending temptation.

Many of Mr. Schubart’s tales are set in a richly imagined Vermont.  In “Harland and Volney,” Harland tries out an Overeaters Anonymous meeting at the local Congregational church, but is overcome with hunger while  he listens to the other members describe rich foods as they tell how they failed to keep to their diets.

Volney, his friend, encourages him to try Alcoholics Anonymous — “Better ya come wi’ me to AA, ’ey don’ talk ’bout how much fun it is to git drunk.”

Harland goes and finds acceptance, a girlfriend, and the support he needs to shed pounds.  It’s one of the few happy endings Mr. Schubart offers.

The passage also points to one of the less appealing aspects of Mr. Schubart’s writing, his fondness for dialect.  Trying to imitate a Vermont or French Canadian accent, as opposed to their possessors’ patterns of speech, is nearly impossible and comes across as mockery, something Mr. Schubart clearly doesn’t intend.

Another curious aspect of the book is its relentless insistence that fat people can only succeed or find happiness through losing weight.  There is no place in Mr. Schubart’s thought-provoking collection for someone like him, a fat person who is successful in business and has the satisfaction of making a major contribution to his community.