Fat Girl Dancing

by Kris Kneen

How does a person come to know that they are different from the children around them? To measure themselves against a set normal and find themselves lacking?

When did I know that I was plump, and then fat?

Fat child, self-denying adolescent, hungry young woman; a body now burgeoning uncontrolled into middle age. Kris Kneen has borne the usual indignities: the confrontations with clothes that won’t fasten, with mirrors that defame, with strangers whose gaze judges and dismisses. This is the story of how Kris learned to look unblinkingly at their recalcitrant body, and ultimately found the courage to carry it to freedom.

Fat Girl Dancing is a frank, beautiful and triumphant ode to self-respect from one of Australia’s most original and acclaimed writers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Australia, Biography Memoir

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 2023

About the author

Kris Kneen is the award-winning author of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, including An Uncertain Grace, which was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. They have written and directed broadcast television documentaries and were the Copyright Agency Non-fiction Fellow in 2020.

The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen is their latest book.

Reviews

[Krystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fattastic, insightful read that will particularly resonate if you've ever lived in a bigger body.

I really enjoyed this, but at times it was really f*king depressing and it got to me. I appreciate the frankness, but it also broke me a bit.

It's a memoir, and it winds around with the thread of the story being a self-portrait the author wishes to create.

It explores a love of the water and adventures in diving; it explores art and eventually brings us to the dancing hinted at by the title. As someone who loves dance I wanted more of the latter, and felt a little cheated by the title since there wasn't more.

Still, the approach to each facet of her story with such brutal honesty was something I loved and could relate to in quite a few places.

There are plenty of awful moments here that had me feeling second-hand shame, and it was that feeling that repeatedly had me setting down the book in favour of something cheerier. At the same time, it was addictive to read about experiences similar to my own so I never stayed away long.

This is a candid account of a person in a fat body trying to find acceptance in a world that is not designed for fat bodies. It's raw and upfront and I really enjoyed it.

[Text Publishing]

The following book reviews have been shared by Text Publishing – publisher of Fat Girl Dancing

‘With characteristic Kneen heart and originality we are invited into a lifetime hunger for disappearance, a pursuit of love, and moments of perfection. Iconically queer and questioning, with a bobbing cork of generosity. A pleasure to hold.’
Kaya Wilson

‘A prism of a book, relighting the world around us, page by page.’
Chloe Hooper

‘Muscular, dexterous, and superbly inventive, Fat Girl Dancing is an extraordinary investigation - and expression - of the self.’
Sarah Krasnostein

‘Insightful and poetic, Fat Girl Dancing is a triumph. I am better for having read it, perhaps even a little more human. This book may be Kneen's specific story, but it is for every mind and every body.’
Bri Lee

‘If a book is the best kind of invitation to try on a different life for size, this one insists that readers take up that invitation completely and intimately. A story of love that questions perceptions and presumptions, Kris Kneen’s Fat Girl Dancing deconstructs how one person sees themselves and sees the world – and their sense of how the world sees them – with gentle heart, unflinching introspection and lyrical ferocity. Exquisitely shaped and personally provocative, it balances a reality of no easy answers with an experience of ultimate transcendence.’
Ashley Hay

‘Kris Kneen has a rare talent for tackling taboo subjects. Again and again, they’ve spoken the unspeakable, dug into the hidden parts of ourselves with a tender and unflinching gaze. In Fat Girl Dancing, Kneen brings that talent to bear on fatness, a topic still drenched in shame and stigma. The result is a raw yet lyrical memoir that sits with the ambivalences of living in a fat body in a deeply fatphobic world. This is not a trauma memoir, nor is it fat activism; it’s a fearless documentation of the realities of Othered embodiment. Like all the best life writing, Fat Girl Dancing is at once deeply specific and broadly resonant. On each page, Kneen breathes poetry into the pain of having the “wrong" body—a pain so many of us have shared.’
Yves Rees

‘Visceral and transportive, Fat Girl Dancing is a triumph of story telling, at once sharp and compassionate, critical yet subjective. In this wildly creative memoir, the body is explored in all its richness, controversy and taboo. This is Kneen at their finest.’
Mirandi Riwoe

‘Equally sumptuous as it is heartbreaking, Fat Girl Dancing evokes the sweaty, dreamy, beautiful nightmare of living in a body that the culture at large rejects. Kneen puts it all out there: flesh, insecurity and art, and in doing so creating a work of corporeal neutrality and—most importantly—uncompromising sexiness’
Eloise Grills

‘Brave, visceral and original. An unsettling look at bodies in all their frailty...’
Kristina Olsson

‘We all have monsters that lurk in the dark - cruel little voices that shame us from the shadows. What might happen if we dared to set them loose? If we dared to set ourselves loose? Fat Girl Dancing is the answer. Kris Kneen has written the book of their body, and - like their body - it refuses to be pinned. This book is wounded, exultant and magnificently alive.’
Beejay Silcox

‘This is an enthralling and bold self-portrait. Kneen faces the mirror and the body and the world with an unflinching, generous gaze. Her courage and clarity are, of course, absolutely vital to the book’s power, but what makes this memoir really soar is the beauty and precision of her writing. Passionate, honest—a superb book from one of our best writers.’
Christos Tsiolkas

‘[Fat Girl Dancing is] more than a memoir – it is a self-portrait, expressing both the self over time in their words, and their body as a still in photos and paintings. This is a deliciously queer book in Kneen’s astute consideration of othered bodies and what it means to fall outside white, heterosexual standards of beauty.’
Clare Millar, Readings

‘A masterpiece of introspective corporeality…Kneen’s sensual prose unpacks problems with seeing fatness as being situated within bodies as opposed to contexts…Fat Girl Dancing is an achingly honest memoir about writing the body, with poignant poetic emphasis on artistic expression, performing femininity and rebelliously refusing to languish…Kneen’s journey will resonate deeply with those whose worlds don’t always fit, people who sparkle blue with joy, and those who know how it feels to experience a non-Euclidean selfhood.’
Nanci Nott, ArtsHub

‘Kris Kneen’s Fat Girl Dancing is a series of attempts by the author to really see themself…Their dedication to throwing themself into a pursuit is commendable, and the crushing disappointment of that pursuit not being a good fit feels familiar…Fat Girl Dancing [helps] build the Australian voice in this essential conversation about which bodies deserve respect and when – that is, all of them, and always.’
Sam van Zweden, Age/SMH

‘A potent mix of emotional vulnerability and intellectual acuity…Poignant, enraging, heartbreaking…In this triumphant act they not only reveal their body, they also reveal their heart. And, amid the sequins and feathers, what a sparkling thing it is.’
Monthly

‘Not uniformly positive, but contains a good quote: ‘candid, unflinching, and exquisitely written.’
Australian Book Review

‘The book, like Anthony Mullins’ exquisite photographs of Kneen’s naked curves...resists being seen one way. It invites interpretation. And it asks the reader to conceive a whole from its series of beautifully composed parts, bringing their own experiences and projections to bear on it.’
InReview

‘Kneen has written a memoir full of flesh, full of desire, full of longing, full of both feeling less and wanting more. It is also beautifully written, inclusive, heartbreaking, explicit and raw. You don’t have to be fat or thin to dive in with Kneen, you just need to be human.’
Frances Whiting, Herald Sun (5 stars)

‘A powerful and deeply vulnerable memoir…This book is also an attempt to see their body anew, and an act of self-inscription: of claiming their story and their corporeality in culture.’
West Australian

‘Kneen’s delivery is exquisite and emotionally balanced.’
Melanie Saward, Conversation

‘Kneen had started writing a book exploring the idea of fatness, but not looking directly at her own body. Instead, she read books and scientific papers and did interviews, eventually realising she needed to take an unflinching look at herself. This she does…[Kneen] takes a clear-eyed view of her fatness.’
Good Reading (4 stars)

‘Fat Girl Dancing is a remarkable addition to Kris’s body of literary work.’
Her Canberra

‘Moving and compelling.’
Miranda Riwoe, Liminal

[Freya Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kneen is a wonderful writer. Their words are beautiful and easy to read, pulling the reader into their world and holding you captive.

While I was intrigued by the writing, I felt like the storyline teased things then dropped them and we jumped a bit all over the place.

I also disagreed on their version of what being a woman is. It seemed like they were pigeon holing women into a very small box of dresses, gossip, sweet smelling moisturises and the thing that really got me angry, when Kneen mentioned the ‘mind-games’ women play. These things that were mentioned as reasons why Kneen themselves doesn’t feel like a woman.

I felt like with Kneen’s exploration of their gender identity, they felt the need to subtly throw shade at women and I’m not here for that.
This seems counterproductive to widening what it means to be a woman and not having such a strict and stereotyped binary.
I’m all for people exploring their gender and being who they truly are, but not at the expense of another gender. Especially women.

Having said all that, Kneen’s writing is strong and I would definitely read more of their work in the future even if I disagree vehemently with some things they’ve expressed.

[Cass Moriarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw, vulnerable, confronting, self-reflective and questioning, Kris Kneen’s memoir Fat Girl Dancing (Text Publishing 2023) is an examination of the body in all its manifestations, and specifically Kneen’s feelings about their own body, its capabilities, its strengths and weaknesses, and the space it occupies.

This book began its journey as Kneen ruminated on their childhood and adolescence, when they were fat (too fat) and then thin (too thin) and then fat again. They link the up and down yo-yo of their body’s size with their self-esteem (or lack of it), their feelings of difference and isolation, the unhelpful enabling of their family’s attitude towards food and love. The amazing thing about this book is that as we as readers travel through it, we journey alongside Kneen as they unpack the idea of being fat – the health issues, the myths, the misunderstandings, the judgements, the everyday indignities of too-small plane seats and clothes that won’t zip up and mirrors, mirrors everywhere that reflect an often-uncomfortable reality. But as the chapters proceed, and Kneen’s curiosity and vulnerable self-questioning go deeper, and deeper still, we see a metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly as Kneen realises that not only are they writing about body size, but also about gender identity. By the end of the book, Kneen has stopped writing as ‘she’ and ‘her’, as a female, and begins to write as ‘they’ and ‘them’. This epiphany is somewhat of a surprise – haven’t they always just accepted they are female? But when the idea is interrogated, Kneen discovers it is not really so much of a surprise, it’s more like an inevitable truth that they have always felt about their body, something they have acted out in terms of clothing choice, hairstyles and sexual interests, but have finally had the courage or the determination to make a conscious statement about.

Kneen has always been queer and this book also explores aspects of their sexuality, but the idea of a new or different gender identity is something that creeps upon them during the researching and writing of this book, so that by the end, the caterpillar has emerged into a stunning winged butterfly, epitomised by the scenes of Kneen decked out in corsets, stockings, halters and pasties, with enormous feathered fans, dancing burlesque in front of audiences as Kneen talks about their complicated relationship with their own body.

The book is divided into sections roughly related to walking, swimming and dancing, and each is explored in relation to body size, capability, energy, ease (or not) and joy.

The memoir is punctuated by enigmatic photographs taken by Kneen’s partner of close-ups of Kneen’s body parts, so abstract that the reader must sit quietly to understand exactly what we are seeing. Is that the curve of a breast or the bend of a knee? Is that the plumpness of a belly or the swelling of a buttock? Also included are Kneen’s own self-portraits, completed while they were writing this book: huge, life-size canvasses of a naked Kneen, often from a weird point of focus, so that they look heavy but also as if they are as light as a helium balloon, about to take off into the sky.

Kneen’s writing is poetic and evocative, authentic and uncomfortable, full of small, telling details and larger general conclusions. Full of angst and fear, guilt and remorse, ambition and jealousy, humiliation and jubilation. From shy and coy to outrageously and demonstrably ostentatious. Disgust and flirtation. Cooking, eating, consuming. Bullying. Self-loathing. Self-loving. Passion and acceptance. Sensuality and beauty. They write until their cup is full and flows over with devastating and triumphant emotions. Deliciously devastating, brilliantly blunt, provocative and personal.

[Anna Ottersbach-McLean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super insightful and honest. Often quite bleak but also such an important perspective to read. I loved how Burlesque helped Kris with her body image as this is what pole did for me!

[LibraryKath · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always enjoy reading Kris Kneen's work. She has an honesty and frankness that is refreshing and the gift of weaving detailed tapestries with language. This book of course, being on the subject of fatness, is right up my alley. It made me question my own feelings towards my fatness. Because in a lot of ways I couldn't relate to Kris' experience of being fat. I definitely connected with their description of how other people relate to them, behave around them, treat them - but not in the way I feel about my own body. Which made me feel that all fat people are viewed as self-loathing, and that if we're disgusted by our own bodies (which I am not) then we must actually be disgusting. I was pleased that Kris provided a reading list at the end of the book (note: some of my own writing is in that reading list) because there will be people who have never read anything else about fatness and there are loads of perspectives that differ from the one in this book.

Kris writes memoir so well, and this book is no exception.

[Madelaene Barber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really important message about self acceptance. But if you’re as unimaginative as I am and can’t deal with abstract writing, this may not be for you. Loads of metaphysical word pictures throughout the narrative which you’ll love if you’re an original thinker (that ain’t me).

[Sarah Lou]

DNF. I was looking forward to reading this but it just didn’t capture me.

[Natasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had read Kris' first memoir quite a few years ago, I think it was called Affection. I found it to be really honest, excruciatingly so. I was interested to see what she would do with the experience of being overweight. Maybe she wanted to protect her relationship, but she didn't go into how difficult it is to have sex when you have a high bmi. You're really limited to doggie position and even woman on top is hard to maintain balance and exhausting and a bit confronting to oneself visually. She also didn't go into the fact that when you are overweight and have a way fitter and slimmer partner, women with low (or lower) bmis act in a proprietal way towards your partner as if by their lower bmi they have a right to your partner and will openly flirt with them. Also, it's only a minor thing but she gives her height and weight and later says she orders a size 22 burlesque outfit. At this bmi, she would be at least sz 26. I know this as I'm taller and lighter and sz 26, maybe 24. I just thought that with her sexual honesty she would describe the sexual limitations and embarrassments especially. I was looking for that as I've never seen it written. Writers of 'memoir' do pick and choose, change and mash up way more than we think. I just thought Kris would go there, based on her earlier memoir.

[Alanna Inserra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure how I felt about this one. Kneen’s writing is at its strongest in the memoir sections of the book, where she recounts experiences of living in a body deemed unacceptable by society. The frequent short chapters of fantasy and storytelling wrenched me out of her experience, although they were atmospheric. Ultimately this was one of the most honest reads I’ve encountered about living in a fat body. The daily struggles, navigating biased and contradictory science, and the dissonance between wanted to radically accept yourself while feeling a deep impulse to change. It had an update ending but the tone was cold, reflective, morose at times - perhaps reflecting the covid pandemic it was written in? Not one I’ll be recommended widely, but one that I’m glad I read.

[Sonja · Rating 4 out of 5]

I devoured this book.

I saw myself so much in Kris' writing. From the western Sydney public school rememberings of their childhood - including being inexplicably good at discus - to the feeling of not wanting to take up too much space, but also wanting to take up enough space...

This is not an easy read. It is well written, but there is a lot of shame and depression that comes across (I could easily relate here, too).

All in all, an interesting exploration of existing in a world that literally does not want you to exist.

[Alex Moxon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the style of short chapters. The fantasy sections I grew to like, despite them being quite bizarre. I found it quite confronting to read, some of her experiences made me relate to personal experiences. It was depressing to think of how sociatal norms of beauty are pushed on us every minute of the day and if you don't conform you can feel shame. The honesty with which Kris wrote was inviting and her narrative enjoyable to read.

[Daisy (oopsiedaisyreads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fat Girl Dancing sated my deep, aching hunger for an honest portrayal of what it is to be fat and queer. I totally adored this book, and will be recommending it to everyone who will listen.

Thank you to Text Publishing for sending me an advanced copy.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was beautifully written and took me right into the writer's head. How brave they were to expose their deepest, most vulnerable feelings about themselves when the Australian literary community is so tiny. A privilege to read.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author takes you inside her head and does this so very well. Why is weight such a factor in Western society? How can an artist use their art to overcome mental pain. A side story is the rock of a relationship with her husband who loves unconditionally.

[Kat Mohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book - Kris did such a phenomenal job of actualising all these little slights, awarenesses, denials, and just dents of experience. I also cried a few times and was so moved. Thank you for a beautiful work and I’m excited to get started on the reading list they included !!

[Rhonda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite sure why I picked this up at the library - probably to get an insight into a life I am not familiar with, and it does provide that. The somewhat random structure did make it hard to follow, but gave an insight into how the author feels.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Shelley Hodgkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

A beautiful book, sometimes raw, then sweet and heart breaking. Saying it's just about not feeling at home in your body..so much deeper than that. worth the read!

[Amanda Mergler]

Loved this incredible book. Full of raw honesty.

[Tess Carrad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the writing, quite lyrical at times. Nicely interwoven with incidents from the author's life. Now I view fat people quite differently.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very sad, touching moments, but I got bored with the repetition

[Katherine Thornley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant !

[H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Literary merit: 4
Enjoyment: 3

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some parts were I enjoyed and some parts made me feel like I should hate myself. It was an emotional roller coaster but there was triumph. I’m glad the book exists.

[Gillian RB · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry, 100 page rule. I got bored and gave up.

[Alana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book. Very provocative and raw at times with beautiful illustrations

[Nicki Kendall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to #netgalley for the ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. This memoir was written in short bite size chapters. It was a poignant, confronting and thought provoking read that was everything you would ever want in a memoir. An honest portrayal of Kneen's experiences as an overweight, queer person and coming to terms with how some people in society view/judge overweight people and how they along with their partner love and appreciate every part of the body they are in. I found the Burlesque dancing to also be an empowering and confidence boosting idea of how we can all learn to embrace the bodies we and others have and to admire and appreciate them accordingly, instead of looking at them with judgement. #kriskneen #fatgirldancing #netgalley #goodreads #tea_sipping_bookworm #getlitsy #thestorygraph #memoir #fat #bookqueen #bookstagram

[Maddly Peculiar · Rating 5 out of 5]

a divine work of art. kris explained my relationship with my body better than i ever could have. they’re poetic and smart and funny and sometimes so gut wrenchingingly honest. if you have ever felt a disconnect from your body then you will find a home in this book