Measure By Measure
by Rebecca Fox & William Sherman
June 2009
A romantic romp with the fabulously fat.
Original trade paperback $25.00 | 384 pp | ISBN 9781597190176 | PDF, EPUB & Mobipocket ebook $3.99 | ISBN 9781597190336
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When blonde, rubenesque paralegal Jenny Taylor is coaxed by her boss Lissa to a dance sponsored by the Midwestern chapter of RADFAm, a national fat advocacy organization, this wild new romantic world throws her into a spin. For within the group’s gang of full-figured friends and their admirers lies the tantalizing chance for love and betrayal, couplings and contretemps. The well-rounded cast of suds-worthy singles includes:
Misty Shores, super-sized spiritual guide and entrepreneuse
Greg Dillman, Armani-armored chubby chaser on the prowl
Connie Donovan, a raven-tressed and roundly rumped fashion diva who mows a swath of spurned paramours
Paul Daily, a lanky teacher who learns more than he’d imagined about plump pretties,
and Joseph Rivera, a hunky sous chef who’s forever seeking a BBW who measures up to his ideal.
It’s robust, comic romance as Jenny and her friends flesh out the truth about soap opera: It’s not just for the rich and slender. Taken from the online cyber-serial, Measure By Measure is a Tales of the City for the fat and fabulous!
Author Comments
Becky
In 1997 Bill & I introduced Measure By Measure as a serialized soap opera (a la the inestimable Mr. Maupin), developing and honing it over several years and countless hundreds of miles.
My aging, ailing mother was living alone, 50 miles away, and our near-weekly visits offered uninterrupted time for conversation, perfect for exploring this fat-topian fantasy.
As longtime supporters of the factual NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) organization, we’d captured remembrances of friends, conventions and events that helped flesh out our fictional characters with a Windy City flair. Bill and I cherished those scenic sojourns, even as we watched Mom struggle and fail. Measure became our creative respite from worry and despair.
Mom, you were always beautiful in my eyes, size 14 and beyond. But our of decades-old vestiges of your childhood size issues sprouted seeds of my own quarter-century of body-hatred.
I pray now that, in reading this story, mothers and daughters can break the chain of self-loathing and embrace their unique personal power. And maybe then your self-doubts can be exorcised as well.
Bill
There’s not much I can add to Becky’s words except to note that writing and rewriting this book with my lovely wife has been a heady experience.
Becky is my Jenny/Misty/Ann, and working with her on this sprawling saga has been elevating, maddening, energizing, and, ultimately, bonding.
It took a long time for this book to get finished, but I’m profoundly grateful that we both had that time.
Praise for Measure By Measure
“One of the first questions I hear from women who hear about size acceptance is, ‘Is it really true that there are men who prefer fat women?’ Yes, Virginia, there are fat admirers in the world. This book is unique in that it kisses and tells (in fictional form, of course!) about that social world. So far this is the only book I know of that provides an entertaining, positive look into the plus-sized dating scene. The co-authors are a couple who established a chapter of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) in Central Illinois in the 1990s, and the romances, triangles and soap opera stories in Measure By Measure come from a truth they have both witnessed and lived. I found the characters engaging and enjoyed rooting for star-crossed lovers to get together, unraveling a mystery and watching the devious doings of a fat femme fatale. It’s a fun, hopeful book!”
Lynne Murray
author of
Bride of the Living Dead, The Falstaff Vampire Files,
and the Josephine Fuller mystery series:
Larger Than Death, Large Target, At Large, and A Ton of Trouble
“This complex and fast-moving romantic adventure is filled with engaging, deftly rendered characters, suspense, humor, intrigue and poignancy: all the best a really good soap opera has to offer. During my savoring of the saga I lost track of the number of times I read aloud to others one of its apt insights, delightful phrasings or evocative descriptions. You may recognize people you have known (and perhaps yourselves) among its cast. I have a feeling we have not seen the last of these folks. I certainly hope not: I want to know what happens to them next! A sequel, please?”
Michael Markwell
San Francisco, CA
“…a lengthy but engaging story that lives up to its promise of being a soap opera in prose….The characters and plot show that within any culture lies the capacity to hate, malign, ostracize, and stigmatize….this is a totally unique type of story that I found both fascinating and very personal….It’s real in its honesty about relationships and being fat, and gives those of us who have been there a nod in mainstream media.”
Robin Kavanaugh
BlogCritics.org