Dead Weight: On Hunger, Harm and Disordered Eating

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Enters the ED discourse like a blaze of light' - Vogue 'Sharply intelligent . . . consoling and enraging' - Sarah Moss, author of The Fell In Dead Weight, Emmeline Clein brings together her own experience of disordered eating with the stories of other women - famous figures from across time and popular culture, and girls she has known and loved - and traces the medical and cultural history of anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia and binge eating disorder. In writing that's electric, fierce and endlessly curious, Clein investigates the economics that underpin our eating disorder epidemic, grapples with the many ways disordered eating has affected her own friendships and romantic relationships, and illuminates how today's feminism has been complicit in disordered eating culture. Through it all, she challenges the accepted narratives women absorb every day about themselves, which connect female worth to inhabiting an ever-smaller form. In an age of appetite suppression, Clein imagines a world where we allow ourselves to listen to our appetites and fight back against these diseases of self-destruction.

Reviews

Its a joy to read such sharply intelligent writing on a subject where critical thinking is rarely found; a consoling and enraging book in which thoughtful readers will find fellowship. -- Sarah Moss, author of The Fell
A compassionate dive into the disordered eating . . . enters the ED discourse like a red-bound blaze of light' * Vogue *
Electric with insight, and suffused with a strange, stubborn tenderness. -- Leslie Jamison, author of The Recovering
Canny . . . persuasive . . . a personal testimony and cultural analysis. * The New Yorker *
With compassion and rage [Clein] wrestles with the root causes of the ongoing eating disorder epidemic. * Time *
A lyrical and scrupulously researched portrait of disordered eating in its many manifestations . . . An authoritative, generous and persuasive debut that I wish I could go back in time and gift to my teenage self. -- Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood
A meticulously researched and carefully told exploration of eating disorders and how they pervade our culture. Emmeline Clein has handled this volatile, complex topic with a grace and kindness that is so often missing from discussions of eating disorders. It feels like talking about recovery with a very smart friend who knows what you've been through and wants the best for you. -- Marianne Eloise, author of Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking
A dense, complex collection . . . earnest in its pursuit of a healthier society. * Elle *
This book is a bomb, made of all of the fury and intensity of any girl who wonders what exactly they are hungering for. Joan Didion of the Tumblr era. This manifesto is meant to be devoured, in all of its witty, compassionate, feverish, elegantly argued brilliance. -- Kate Zambreno, author of Heroines
A book you must read . . . It is, in its broadest sense, a hopeful book offering an alternative, communitarian way of existing in our bodies and in the world. * Jezebel *
At once sweeping and incisive, Clein's book positions eating disorders within histories of capitalism, technology, popular culture and social media. * Los Angeles Review of Books *
Urgent, intense, and often captivating . . . A book that deserves attention. -- Starred review * Kirkus *
Clein writes with flash and drama [and] critiques with clarity and nuance. She can't look away, and her writing asks that we don't, either. * Booklist *

Author Bio

Emmeline Clein's writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Yale Review, BuzzFeed News, VICE, The Nation, Catapult and Antigravity, amongst other publications. Her chapbook, Toxic, was published by Choo Choo Press in 2022. She received her MFA from Columbia's School of the Arts and lives in New York. Dead Weight is her first book.