Review: "Dead Weight" by Emmeline Clein

Dead Weight by Emmeline Clein
Published February 2024 via Knopf
★★★

Clein spent years entrenched in eating disorders, and in Dead Weight she examines some of the personal and societal obsessions that influenced her illness, and that of so many others.

Structured as a series of essays, Dead Weight leans heavily into pop culture, with an occasional academic bent. Clein has clearly read extensively—and consumed large amounts of other media—on the subject, and she quotes heavily. In places this works well, giving a sense of just how pervasive an issue is or in how many works it's reflected. I did end up wishing that fewer of the chapters/essays had taken this rapid-fire structure, with quotation following source following quotations, because it can feel very much like a montage, and I usually prefer to dive deeper into a topic or source (more analysis and fewer examples, I think). The pop culture parts have a very American lens; as someone who is American but is other things as well, I drew some very different conclusions (e.g., from the discussion of Girls vs. Fleabag) than Clein does, but there will be resonance for those whose media consumption is primarily American.

One thing that readers should be mindful of: While Clein makes a concerted effort to avoid potential triggers in the form of numbers and certain details of eating disorders and so on, I'm not sure she ever really manages to write past a level of latent ambivalence about her eating disorder. It's understandable but still a risky place to be writing from, and in places the compulsion to write, or perhaps just to delve into this in a sanctioned way, overrides caution. I don't know how to write about her without making her struggle into a manual or a vision board, writes Clein in a chapter that I can only describe as highly ill advised (and one of the most triggering things I've read in years). But I am going to try to write about her anyway... (loc. 3947*) An interesting read, but one I cannot recommend to anyone with anything other than a very healthy, uncomplicated relationship with their body.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.