Bed by David Whitehouse

Heat's deputy editor's debut novel is a gripping tale of obesity and ignorance

By Samantha Tse, 1 June 2011

Bed charts the life of Mal, whose refusal to conform causes his family much anxiety and, at the age of 25, makes a conscious decision to become obese and spends his days lying in a pool of his own dead skin and fat out of protest of a life lived in 'mediocre existence'. So unfolds the story, narrated by his unnamed younger brother, who recounts the story, of how Mal came to be the way he is - obese and never leaving his bed as a stance against a normative life of bills, marriage and kids.

Enraptured journalists come to the house to try and figure out why Mal has chosen to live his life in obesity, objecting to a life most people consider normal. His obesity is by choice, done out of protest and though not exactly healthy, has a fantastical intensity to it.

Family secrets are revealed through a series of flashbacks. There is the tension between the parents with mum playing the martyr and dad unsure of how to be a father, the forgotten younger brother who narrates the whole book, and then there's Lou - Mal's girlfriend and the object of his younger brother's love. We find hidden truths and unspoken regrets as the family learn to cope with Mal's farcical actions.

David Whitehouse is the deputy editor of Heat magazine and while Bed could have easily been a suspense thriller, it's written in an investigative journalist format, peeling back the layers as we try to discover and understand Mal, the novel's anti-hero. While most anti-heroes deal with complex issues of identity, belonging and alienation, Mal is very self-assured and ignores the ostracisation of the community he lives in. For those who like something a bit more radical, this excellent debut novel will have you entertained, though at times, feeling slightly unnerved and definitely uncomfortable. The tone of the novel could have easily turned strained or cruel, but Whitehouse skillfully orchestrates a story that neither victimizes Mal or falls into the trap of making the him into a caricature. Rather, we identify with Mal's stance against mediocracy in the same way that we do with another famous anti-hero, Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye.

Whitehouse brings something compelling to morbid obesity and opens up a new dialogue of the contrast between being a victim of these conditions and choosing it as a way to control a situation. It's twisted, but it had us gripped from beginning to end.

Verdict: Good

Samantha Tse: "It's twisted, but it had us gripped from beginning to end."