Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes (review)

Author:  Chris Crutcher
Title:  Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes
Publication Information:  New York: HarperTempest, 1993
Recommended Ages:  grades 10-12

Eric was overweight before he joined the swim team.  It was Eric’s weight that led him to Sarah Byrnes, a severe burn victim.  They were both outcasts and outcasts tend to stick together.  The difference between them, though, is that Eric can change his appearance, and he’s afraid that he’ll lose Sarah as he loses weight. But that’s only part of Crutcher’s wonderfully complex examination of teen life and the pressures kids feel as they make their way through school.  Crutcher creates a clever forum for discussion of difficult and important issues by having his characters participate in a unique class called Contemporary American Thought.  In the students’ discussions, Crutcher introduces sensitive topics and thoughtfully develops each of his characters in relation to the topics and beliefs that the students talk about in class.  Eric is preoccupied with Sarah, who is currently in a psychiatric hospital for being abruptly uncommunicative.  As such, he wants to discuss the cruelty of the world and why good people like Sarah have to suffer.  Others use the class to talk about their beliefs and related issues like abortion.  Those discussions lead to predictable ends, but that’s the point, and Crutcher uses these discussions to examine the lives of the characters involved, to uncover the complex reasoning behind a person’s beliefs.  The depth of Crutcher’s characters is one of the book’s many strengths. “Boy, ain’t it a trip where heroes come from.” That’s what Eric says after being surprised by one character’s exploits.  Crutcher makes that surprise satisfying, using a bit of misdirection and literary sleight-of-hand to guide the reader to false conclusions, only to reveal that the character’s inner struggles belie outward appearance.  That theme is mirrored in the character of Sarah Byrnes, herself.  On the surface she struggles with her scars, but her inner struggles go far beyond appearance.  She’s not sure she can even trust her best friend with her problems, but trust, along with respect, is something that Sarah and the rest of them are going to have to learn along the way in order for each of them to move on from the problems and pressures they face.