I'm With Fatty

This week's Publisher's Weekly contains the announcement for my new book deal with The Weinstein Company's publishing division--Weinstein Books.

A Pound a Week

"Weinstein publisher Judy Hottensen has acquired world rights to Edward Ugel's memoir, I'm with Fatty: Losing Fifty Pounds in Fifty Miserable Weeks from Farley Chaseat the Waxman Agency. The book follows chronically overweight Ugel, under orders from his doctor to get his 250-pound frame in better shape or risk serious health consequences, as he navigates an unfamiliar world of nutritionists and trainers. Ugel, who adds a male voice to the canon on body image and weight loss, is the author of Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey Through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions, published by Collins last year and recently optioned for film by Tobey Maguire and Michael De Luca for Warner Brothers."

I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to write this book, much less to do so with the folks at TWC.  I'm being paid to exercise, get healthy, and write the book of my dreams. 

I'm With Fatty takes a serious look at the surging obesity epidemic in our culture.  I'm also writing about growing up in a family that was (and still is) passionate about food.  My relationship with food (like many folks) is complicated.  I'm an avid foodie, a lifelong cook, a passionate epicurean.  Still, of late, my foodie life has gotten out of balance.  This book seeks to re-establish my relationship with food...without giving up my obsession with it. 

I'm dead set on having it both ways.  I'm going to write about food as I know it: intimately and in great detail.  I'm also going to continue making delicious and healthy food for my family every day.  Cooking hasn't made me fat.  Eating poorly out of the house and bringing worthless crap home is what's killing me. 

Finally, Fatty chronicles this coming year of my life as I attempt to shed the weight that's been literally and metaphorically killing me.  Yes, doctors are involved.  Yes, the stakes are high.  But, I want this for myself and my wife and our girls--all of whom I care about more than braised pork belly, or Thai pan-roast duck breast, or pasta carbonara, or Hanger steak, or corned beef, or dim sum.  Oh God, what have I done?

Comments

[JJ Ark]

Ed: you don't have to print this. I just wanted to congratulate you on your book deal, as well as the movie deal. I look forward to seeing it on the big screen.