Rating: 
Summary: A Kafkaesque masterpiece
Review: "What do you do when the world thinks you're a monster, and you know it's the world that's monstrous?" This question is posed by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in Jerry Stahl's heart-eating, fictionalized portrait of the turn of the century's original star of Hollywood meltdown.
Meltdown (or becoming the "monster") has been mastered by contemporary fallen stars Michael Jackson, Robert Blake, and Courtney Love. The difference between this dreaded threesome and the dearly departed Fatty is that Arbuckle was incinerated by courtroom media scandal at the zenith of his sparkling vaudeville-to-screen career, not as a post-fame footnote. This fact is what gives I, FATTY, a Kafkaesque masterpiece, its flavorful rum punch in the face. In proving that fat is far stranger than fiction, Stahl's Fatty is clearly guilty of a crime he did not commit.
As a writer for the pre-millennium hit TV show "Alf," Stahl has publicly lived the chaotic celluloid life of success, breakdown and redemption. He was even nabbed by the Keystones on Fatty's old front lawn. In Fatty's smelly old clown shoes, Stahl romances, chills, thrills, revolts, and delivers the sweat drenched goods in this impossible to put down imagination of the mind controlling the plump though flaccid funny man who made Hollywood's first million dollars as a contract actor and lost everything after being accused of a brutal "Coke bottle rape" that killed young actress Virginia Rappe.
From the days of Fatty's unusual arrest and three-trial prosecution, America has not reconciled its fear of fat. Thanks to this blood curdling imbroglio of 1921, even the success of charming, Bowflex-bucking Teletubbies John Goodman, Kirstie Alley and James Gandolfini are highly suspect. But I, FATTY is more than a mouthful of lunchmeat versus morality.
Like O.J. Simpson, Fatty lived to see his own character assassination at the hands of the district attorney, the lawyers, families and "friends," on both sides of the case, and the Hearst-controlled tabloid media --- a "crusifiction" --- can I get a witness for this fact ladies and germs? --- at the hands of a court, press and public that assumed Fatty was guilty before hearing any of the facts and, of course, before hearing one word from Fatty himself.
But Fatty didn't do it. Sure, he was psychologically abused by his father and downed enough Prohibition-era bathtub gin and morphine to stagger Jumbo the elephant, but he didn't kill the "virgin" Vi Rappe --- her abortion doctor did. For starring in too many lead roles as the pie-faced man, eating a few too many cream buns and washing them down with fire water, Fatty got set up by a producer with a grudge, a whore with an attitude, a bad lawyer, a DA with gubernatorial dreams, and a whole bunch of other phonies who used Fatty's big butt to cover their own.
Post-World War I America, and Hollywood, needed a fall guy to show the commies and the liberals that women belonged at home, barefoot and pregnant --- not in the factories or in the voting booths --- and that Tinsel Town was not the arbiter of porn. Short skirts, bobbed hair and feminism be damned! As a modern-day Job, Fatty was, as Stahl relates, the first Hollywood fall guy, but no one at the studios told Fatty until it was too late. See, they made a killing themselves at the box office when Fatty was the hero and made themselves look Holier than Thou in the conservative social circles when Fatty was the devil. So, Fatty found, either the box of donuts (whiskey, fatty foods, sex, sinful thoughts, racy movies, bad actor behavior) went, or he went. And Hollywood still writes these types of scripts, for movies and for reality; quick, name the high and low points in the career of Paris Hilton.
Best supporting roles and comic relief are offered --- as well as a hipster education in 1920s Broadway and Hollywood culture --- by Buster Keaton, Mabel Normand, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, William Randolph Hearst, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Fatty's three wives, and others in this fiction that will make you, Miss or Mr. American film star wannabe, think twice about going on a reality show.
The reality is ... drum roll please ... there is no such thing as reality, only perception, which, as Fatty and so many others learned, is a fatal dose of remembrance and imagination. Oscar Wilde, step aside --- Jerry Stahl is back in town!
--- Reviewed by Brandon M. Stickney
Rating: 
Summary: Absorbing and Heartbreaking
Review: A tight, compelling read from start to finish. Hits the ground running with Arbuckle's Dickens-like childhood and rides that train through to the scandal that ended his career. A gem.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe soon a movie?
Review: Arbuckle wasn't the greatest but he was the first comic superstar. He was just a great clown and a really nice guy who went from a tragic childhood to stardom and back to tragedy. There is some tremendous writing here, such as "What do you do when the world thinks you're a monster and you know it's the world that is monstrous." Stahl also scores with, "Everything he lost came back except the delusion that it was really his and the belief that it mattered." Much of this portrait of Arbuckle is conjecture but it is a very believable and sympathetic portrait.
If this book becomes a movie then I suggest that Roscoe can be played by Oliver Platt or Kevin James with John Goodman as his psychotic Dad.
Rating:
Summary: The Silent Comic Speaks!
Review: Jerry Stahl has written an absorbing faux memoir of the rags-to-riches-and-back-to-rags silent film comic Fatty Arbuckle whose career and life were tanked by FALSE/trumped up charges (he was a scapegoat for the ills & decadence of motion pictures) of the rape and murder of party girl Virginia Rappe in 1921. Stahl brings the era and the man to life in this creative, evocative, and (YES!) sometimes funny book. I FATTY is also a commentary on the fleeting and fickle nature of fame and public opinion. All Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle wanted was to be loved which makes the vicious turning of his once adorning public all the more tragic. This book is also a great treat for silent film fans with "guest appearances" by Mack Sennett, Buster Keaton, Mabel Normand, Adolph Zukor, Charlie Chaplin, etc. It all makes for a very engaging read.
Rating: 
Summary: Brings Arbuckle to life. A good laugh and a fast read. Enjoy
Review: Jerry Stahl seems to be able to find the sarcastic and sardonic humor in even the most downtrodden lives. "I, Fatty" is a firsthand account of Fatty Arbuckle's tumultuous life. It's written very simply and helps us to imagine the inner turmoil of being an outsider in a judgemental society.Born to an abusive father in Kansas, Arbuckle turned to theatre as an escape from a bitter life. He rose to fame in the cinema and at one point was more popular than Chaplin. He was the first screen actor to make a million dollars a year. But in 1921 he was accused of the rape and murder of actress Virginia Rappe. He was slandered by the press and not even his acquittal could save his career. He eventually lost everything. Stahl emphasizes the mental anguish of being fat, impotent, and presumed guilty. He also shows the role that heroin played in Fatty Arbuckle's life. Heroin was readily available and legal at the time, and he became addicted using it as a pain killer after a botched medical procedure. Towards the end of his years, his servant used heroine as a tool to get Arbuckle to divulge all of his secrets. I had the pleasure of hearing Stahl read from the book and it was quite entertaining. He joked that it is obligatory for him to include heroin in every one of his novels. He emphasizes the public outcry against Fatty as being led by a conservative anti-Hollywood element. I would agree, but would also like to point out that in the 1920s journalists had more leeway to embelish the truth and print it as fact. Even today, the press chooses to emphasize some facts over others and often slanders people in the process. If you are interested in the life of one of Hollywood's first stars, and if you like dark humor, "I, Fatty" is for you. It's a good read that will make you think and give you a laugh or two.
Rating:
Summary: aye, fatty
Review: Jerry Stahl's novel is wicked and ferociously absorbing. I, Fatty reveals his frankness, his sense of fun, and stinging perception. Read it to the end.
Rating:
Summary: I, Stahl
Review: Literature remains vital often by expanding into non-literature. Sadly, one of America's most gifted reflectionist, Jerry Stahl, is saddled by his own dexterity. One is unable to read about Mr. Stahl's literary output without words such as, HEROIN, JUNKY, ALF , HOLLYWOOD, quickly finding residence to offer an occasionally sympathetic, however, mostly derisive qualification of his art. And yet, I, FATTY perceived outside it's place of origin is a welcome new guest to Mr Stahl's unique literary carnival.
Rating:
Summary: Stahl breathes life back into Fatty!
Review: LoveLy! Jerry Stahl captures the voice and time of a man and world turned upside down. Stahl knows...if you have read Permanenet Midnight - you already know he is a brilliant writer. Beautifully written, In I, Fatty, Stahl re-invents a man who has was slandered by the 3 H's - Hearst, Hayes and Hollywood. Fatty was blacklisted!! Fatty was FRAMED!! Ever since reading Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon (some 20 years ago)... I was so happy..to at long last... find a writer who looked DEEPER into the life of a man who brought so much joy to so many people. It is so right at this time of bible thumping consevativism - to read a different take on the life of a man betrayed by the repressed world. Buster keaton Rules, okay? Thank you Mister Stahl, for validating what I always hoped and suspected. I LOVE FATTY. And your words made me happy beyond belief. Read this book now! If you have any interest in the beginnings of Hollywood, freedom of speech and knock-out writing...
I think Jerry Stahl is one of the best writers of our times....read this and laugh and weep. It is Grand!
Rating:
Summary: A terrific and absorbing read, but...
Review: Stahl has done a fine job with this book--It sizzles. It's unforgettable. And it represents a step toward helping Roscoe Arbuckle claim his rightful place alongside movie pioneers like Chaplin and Keaton (whom Arbuckle discovered, by the way, as Stahl makes clear).
However, it's such a shame that Stahl saw fit to perpetuate the unproven and likely untrue notion that Arbuckle was unable to kick drugs. In doing so, Stahl has done a real disservice to his muse. After all he's been through, I would argue that Arbuckle deserves better.
Arbuckle was in fact briefly addicted to a kind of heroin in 1916, when an intern irresponsibly prescribed morphine as a pain-reliever due to a carbuncle on his leg. To the actor's enormous credit, however, he voluntarily subjected himself to an agonizing period of complete withdrawal-and by all biographical accounts came out clean.
Mr. Stahl's book is a work of fiction. It's his prerogative to shape Mr. Arbuckle's story into a product that might be more dramatically interesting or commercially viable, but readers should know that his version of the facts does not represent the truth.
Rating:
Summary: Great story
Review: The only thing I didn't like about this book is that there are so many characters. I can't remember all my co-workers' names, so I had a hard time tracking everyone. But you've got to consider that the book covers almost an entire lifetime of one human being. We all know more people than we realize.
Overall, it was a good read. The rollercoaster of sadness and happiness is a great illustration of what life is really like.
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