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Fat Bald Jeff: A Novel
“A slacker hell [with] a disgruntled, wisecracking protagonist . . . A hilarious send-up of hippies and hipsters” from the author of Permanent Record (Kirkus Reviews). Addie Prewitt is a copyeditor for the National Association of Libraries. When her boss, the repulsive Coddles, heaps another new project on her department—with no additional remuneration naturally—she decides she’s had enough. While spending her days battling with her roommate about whether Black Sabbath or Neil Diamond will occupy the turntable and her nights beating her overeager suitor away from the door of her boudoir, Addie discovers a piece of vile pornography in Coddles’s dry cleaning. Finally, she has the means to retaliate. Meanwhile, Fat Bald Jeff, the tech-support guy who has to cope with her mechanical self-sabotage, turns out to be even more disaffected than she, and they hatch the ultimate plan to give the pigs some of their own medicine. With a surreal wit and a keen eye that bring to mind Lily Tomlin set loose in Dilbert-world, Fat Bald Jeff is a sharp satire and a paean to the petty humiliations of workers everywhere. “Stella provides a lot of freshly imagined fun . . . There are so many funny lines and scenes that even librarians may like it. As for the lumpen—they’ll love it.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Warm the pockets of your heart watching this bereft waif find a little happiness in life.” —Mademoiselle “Amusing . . . caustic . . . entertaining . . . Read on company time!” —US Weekly “A fun, harmless, and quick read. Don’t look for inspiration, just amusement.” —Booklist
226 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 2001
About the author
Leslie Stella
7 books25 followersLESLIE STELLA is the author of the YA novel, Permanent Record (March 2013, Skyscape), and three previous novels of contemporary adult fiction, Unimaginable Zero Summer, The Easy Hour, and Fat Bald Jeff. She was a founding editor of the Chicago-based politics and satire magazine Lumpen, and her work has been published in The Mississippi Review, The Adirondack Review, Bust, Easy Listener, and anthologized in The Book of Zines: Readings from the Fringe (edited by Playboy’s Chip Rowe), a collection of essays and articles from the obsessive, frequently bizarre world of zines. Leslie is a Pushcart Prize in short fiction nominee.
(I won't rate books by other authors here on Goodreads. I think there are obvious reasons why an author might feel uncomfortable doing that.)
Photo: © John McMullen 2012
(I won't rate books by other authors here on Goodreads. I think there are obvious reasons why an author might feel uncomfortable doing that.)
Photo: © John McMullen 2012
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 22, 2026
I stan a problematic FMC. And this girl is PROBLEMATIC.
if your favourite fictional women are walking red flags wrapped in emotional damage, Leslie Stella has prepared a feast.
Nothing could have prepared me for the experience of opening this book and immediately being introduced to one of the most committed haters ever put on the page.
This is how the book starts:
And I was immediately obsessed by this woman who treats public transport like a gladiator arena.
Not because elbowing an elderly man is admirable behaviour. Obviously. But because within three sentences the author establishes that we're not dealing with a quirky, lovable, morally grey disaster. We're dealing with a genuine menace to society.
And then, just in case you thought she might have overreacted once and learned from it, a few paragraphs later we get:
Addie is who Eleanor Oliphant wishes she was.
She's mean, judgmental, bitter, sarcastic, nasty, hypocritical, snooty, pretentious, contradictory.
She is EVERYTHING.
There's no careful 'relatable awkward girl' filter here. Addie's allowed to be genuinely unpleasant. Like, spectacularly unpleasant. She's not quirky. She's not adorable. She's not just a little odd. She's not secretly right. She's frequently wrong, always cruel, and constantly making herself everybody else's problem.
God forbid women have hobbies.
The thing about Addie, though, is she's all of us. She's not totally alien. She's us on a bad day. She's every petty, judgemental, self-pitying, irrational thought that flashes through our heads before our better nature steps in and tells us to knock it off. Addie never gets that second part. She's all our worst traits with a few extra thrown in for good measure.
That's why she works, thougu. If she were com pletely detached from reality she'd just be a cartoon. Instead, every so often she veers into this bizarrely self-mythologising “tragedy heroine” register that's so melodramatic it circles all the way back to brilliance.
Basically self-care culture for the emotionally feral.
But she genuinely believes she's entitled to a higher calibre of emotional suffering than her environment's willing to supply. The drama's a lifestyle requirement. If life isn't sufficiently theatrical, she'll provide the theatrics herself, thank you very much.
It’s not just the imagery, it’s the sheer scale of it. She could just say she's bored. But that's not enough for Addie. She’s basically indicting reality itself for failing her aesthetic expectations.
And the descriptions are absolutely diabolical. At one point she describes someone as:
AN UPSETTING PAIR OF ANKLES.
This is so mean 😭
Why are we catching strays for having ankles?
Why is she looking at this man like he's an eldritch horror assembled from spare body parts? The sheer venom. The hate. The commitment. The artistry 🤩
I also noticed that a shocking number of people are compared to sea life. Addie babe, what did the ocean ever do to you??
But sea life comparisons aside, every single person she encounters is described like they're her mortal enemy. Nobody is safe. Certainly not people who possess a face. Her internal monologue runs on the assumption that everyone around her is personally offending her by existing.
But also they all deserve the harsh descriptions. Because there's not a single decent, likeable person in this book.
I love them all.
Every character's weird, abrasive, dysfunctional, exhausting, or all of the above. Put any two of them in a room together and they'll make each other worse. It's magnificent.
And why is everyone in this book so GROSS? They're disgusting 🫣 There's always something dripping or flaking off them. They're all sweaty and greasy. Is this just how Addie sees them or is she working with a bunch of trolls? Because if it's the latter then no wonder my girl is the way she is. Give her hazard pay!
I was eating this book up. This is the kind of protagonist who makes a decision and you're immediately like, "oh no." Then she makes another decision and you're like, "oh no no no." Then she discovers a third, even worse option and you're like, "fine I guess 😩". I was fascinated. Horrified. Rooting for her. Judging her. Defending her. The full spectrum.
Everyone around her's irritated with her and she’s like, “they’re clearly reacting to someone else.” Or “she’s laughing at idiots behind me.”
I need that level of delusion and confidence. I need that level of wrongness without hesitation.
The writing style's a choice. I mean that affectionately. It's part novel, part diary, part unfiltered stream of consciousness. Every now and then you'll get these clipped little entries that read less like conventional narration and more like someone updating a journal in the middle of a nervous breakdown. It gives the entire book this slightly off-kilter feeling that perfectly matches her worldview.
Then there’s the break room sandwich incident, which deserves its own review. The meltdown when someone (maybe) takes her sandwich from the break room is incredible. Completely unhinged. So much secondhand embarrassment. It was like I was there, cowering in the corner, begging her to please, for the love of god, stop. And then some kind soul takes pity on her and splits their sandwich with her and she just sneers at them for eating white bread. How about a thank you, Addie?? The entitlement is off the charts.
She's also obsessed with her digestion? ("'My digestion–' I began...") Every third page she discusses fiber and her digestive tract and digestive juices and colon and bowel like it's of national importance ("Need... fiber..."). It becomes this weird grounding detail amid all the chaos, and it's also often the cause of the chaos, like even while she's mentally declaring war on strangers, she's also earnestly preoccupied with whether she's eaten enough roughage.
I spent the entire book oscillating between peeking out from behind my fingers and "you know what? keep going. I need to see where this ends."
if your favourite fictional women are walking red flags wrapped in emotional damage, Leslie Stella has prepared a feast.
Nothing could have prepared me for the experience of opening this book and immediately being introduced to one of the most committed haters ever put on the page.
This is how the book starts:
"As the bus chugged forward, bearing me toward another day's drudgery, I leaned against a nearby geriatric for support. The bus braked in traffic, pitching me on top of him, and the clumsy old cripple ground his umbrella tip into my instep! I elbowed him in retaliation."
And I was immediately obsessed by this woman who treats public transport like a gladiator arena.
Not because elbowing an elderly man is admirable behaviour. Obviously. But because within three sentences the author establishes that we're not dealing with a quirky, lovable, morally grey disaster. We're dealing with a genuine menace to society.
And then, just in case you thought she might have overreacted once and learned from it, a few paragraphs later we get:
"I hit him in the head with the belt buckle of my fake Burberry, causing him to cry out."
Addie is who Eleanor Oliphant wishes she was.
She's mean, judgmental, bitter, sarcastic, nasty, hypocritical, snooty, pretentious, contradictory.
She is EVERYTHING.
There's no careful 'relatable awkward girl' filter here. Addie's allowed to be genuinely unpleasant. Like, spectacularly unpleasant. She's not quirky. She's not adorable. She's not just a little odd. She's not secretly right. She's frequently wrong, always cruel, and constantly making herself everybody else's problem.
God forbid women have hobbies.
The thing about Addie, though, is she's all of us. She's not totally alien. She's us on a bad day. She's every petty, judgemental, self-pitying, irrational thought that flashes through our heads before our better nature steps in and tells us to knock it off. Addie never gets that second part. She's all our worst traits with a few extra thrown in for good measure.
That's why she works, thougu. If she were com pletely detached from reality she'd just be a cartoon. Instead, every so often she veers into this bizarrely self-mythologising “tragedy heroine” register that's so melodramatic it circles all the way back to brilliance.
"A girl can’t have decent histrionics when constantly beset with domestic worries."
Basically self-care culture for the emotionally feral.
But she genuinely believes she's entitled to a higher calibre of emotional suffering than her environment's willing to supply. The drama's a lifestyle requirement. If life isn't sufficiently theatrical, she'll provide the theatrics herself, thank you very much.
"What was I to do with spring and summer now? Chase the tamale vendors throughout my neighborhood? Tan in a sleazy bikini on the fire escape? Stand in the alley with the other vagrants and mongrels, eating discarded corncobs and drinking rainwater?"
It’s not just the imagery, it’s the sheer scale of it. She could just say she's bored. But that's not enough for Addie. She’s basically indicting reality itself for failing her aesthetic expectations.
And the descriptions are absolutely diabolical. At one point she describes someone as:
"Great quivering jowls, more like the earflaps of an aviator's helmet than cheeks, brushed his collar. Black-currant eyes bore down on me out of his dumpling face. He stood arms akimbo like a Sumo sugar bowl, and high-water trousers revealed an upsetting pair of ankles."
AN UPSETTING PAIR OF ANKLES.
This is so mean 😭
Why are we catching strays for having ankles?
Why is she looking at this man like he's an eldritch horror assembled from spare body parts? The sheer venom. The hate. The commitment. The artistry 🤩
I also noticed that a shocking number of people are compared to sea life. Addie babe, what did the ocean ever do to you??
But sea life comparisons aside, every single person she encounters is described like they're her mortal enemy. Nobody is safe. Certainly not people who possess a face. Her internal monologue runs on the assumption that everyone around her is personally offending her by existing.
But also they all deserve the harsh descriptions. Because there's not a single decent, likeable person in this book.
I love them all.
Every character's weird, abrasive, dysfunctional, exhausting, or all of the above. Put any two of them in a room together and they'll make each other worse. It's magnificent.
And why is everyone in this book so GROSS? They're disgusting 🫣 There's always something dripping or flaking off them. They're all sweaty and greasy. Is this just how Addie sees them or is she working with a bunch of trolls? Because if it's the latter then no wonder my girl is the way she is. Give her hazard pay!
I was eating this book up. This is the kind of protagonist who makes a decision and you're immediately like, "oh no." Then she makes another decision and you're like, "oh no no no." Then she discovers a third, even worse option and you're like, "fine I guess 😩". I was fascinated. Horrified. Rooting for her. Judging her. Defending her. The full spectrum.
Everyone around her's irritated with her and she’s like, “they’re clearly reacting to someone else.” Or “she’s laughing at idiots behind me.”
I need that level of delusion and confidence. I need that level of wrongness without hesitation.
The writing style's a choice. I mean that affectionately. It's part novel, part diary, part unfiltered stream of consciousness. Every now and then you'll get these clipped little entries that read less like conventional narration and more like someone updating a journal in the middle of a nervous breakdown. It gives the entire book this slightly off-kilter feeling that perfectly matches her worldview.
Then there’s the break room sandwich incident, which deserves its own review. The meltdown when someone (maybe) takes her sandwich from the break room is incredible. Completely unhinged. So much secondhand embarrassment. It was like I was there, cowering in the corner, begging her to please, for the love of god, stop. And then some kind soul takes pity on her and splits their sandwich with her and she just sneers at them for eating white bread. How about a thank you, Addie?? The entitlement is off the charts.
She's also obsessed with her digestion? ("'My digestion–' I began...") Every third page she discusses fiber and her digestive tract and digestive juices and colon and bowel like it's of national importance ("Need... fiber..."). It becomes this weird grounding detail amid all the chaos, and it's also often the cause of the chaos, like even while she's mentally declaring war on strangers, she's also earnestly preoccupied with whether she's eaten enough roughage.
"'Please,' he interrupted, 'no more about your colon.'"
I spent the entire book oscillating between peeking out from behind my fingers and "you know what? keep going. I need to see where this ends."
July 5, 2014
When I first read this book, I didn't like it. I was a teenager, and my friend (now my husband!) told me the main character, Addie, reminded him of me. Frankly, I was offended, and anyone who has read it, will understand that. She's bossy and bratty and a know-it-all and likes to have everything done her way and hates using stairs and public transport.
.... now that I am an adult, I'm like "Oh yeah. Totally me."
I love this book now that I've experienced the drudge of every day adult life. I actually love Addie's little quirks, like when she wears the sari to her grandma's house, her "poison dart" looks, and her flashbacks. Oooohhhh, the flashbacks. They make you laugh AND feel bad for her, and crazier still - I have a friend who grew up JUST LIKE HER. Eeek.
Lots of different pieces of this book float back to me, all the time. "Not pants. Trousers. Pleats and cuffs. I'm wearing trousers." Love it. How she "covets" the Lemmings furniture. Basically every interaction her and Fat Bald Jeff have together.
And take a drink for every time she has to be carried up the stairs!
I love it. If you don't mind very intelligent, dry humor, style of writing, this book is awesome.
.... now that I am an adult, I'm like "Oh yeah. Totally me."
I love this book now that I've experienced the drudge of every day adult life. I actually love Addie's little quirks, like when she wears the sari to her grandma's house, her "poison dart" looks, and her flashbacks. Oooohhhh, the flashbacks. They make you laugh AND feel bad for her, and crazier still - I have a friend who grew up JUST LIKE HER. Eeek.
Lots of different pieces of this book float back to me, all the time. "Not pants. Trousers. Pleats and cuffs. I'm wearing trousers." Love it. How she "covets" the Lemmings furniture. Basically every interaction her and Fat Bald Jeff have together.
And take a drink for every time she has to be carried up the stairs!
I love it. If you don't mind very intelligent, dry humor, style of writing, this book is awesome.
March 1, 2008
This book was wonderful, absolutely hysterical. I wish I could do something like this at my job haha.
The only thing about it that bothered me was the main character, i didn't like her (in fact i can't even recall her name). She was over the top dramatic and uptight. Sometimes she made me laugh but most of the time i was just really annoyed with her. She did however provide an interesting lens to look through and now I wonder how many people out there see things the way she does.
The only thing about it that bothered me was the main character, i didn't like her (in fact i can't even recall her name). She was over the top dramatic and uptight. Sometimes she made me laugh but most of the time i was just really annoyed with her. She did however provide an interesting lens to look through and now I wonder how many people out there see things the way she does.
August 5, 2011
The characters in the book are fantastic. Its on my list of books that makes me laugh out loud when I read them (including while on public transit which has the added benefit of getting me a seat all by myself.
July 7, 2008
Easily one of my favorite books. Surly, sarcastic, and subversive. Just the way I like it.
July 22, 2023
Won me over.
Having spent the first half of the book bemoaning my poor choice because Addie was *such* an awful twit, but continuing to read because it was interesting, well. Imagine my bemusement, upon finishing the story, to be thinking, "Hey, that was all right. In fact, it was pretty good." Addie slooooowly becomes more palatable as she discovers at least one positive strength, thanks to Fat Bald Jeff.
Having spent the first half of the book bemoaning my poor choice because Addie was *such* an awful twit, but continuing to read because it was interesting, well. Imagine my bemusement, upon finishing the story, to be thinking, "Hey, that was all right. In fact, it was pretty good." Addie slooooowly becomes more palatable as she discovers at least one positive strength, thanks to Fat Bald Jeff.
September 30, 2026
Eat your fibre and avenge the proletariat.
3.5
3.5
May 21, 2008
this was blah, i seriously read it on the train back and forth from NYC today...much preferred the author's other book 'unimaginable zero summer'...i never cared for or developed any sympathy for the main character Addie...
February 26, 2007
Again, simple and quick....main character REALLY got on my nerves in this book...it was funny in the beginning then it just got annoying
January 28, 2008
it made me laugh out loud on several occasions. and is a good quick read for when your between books.
July 19, 2008
The author lived next door to me in college...a fun read. Good vacation book.
April 15, 2013
Super witty. This is an easy, fun read.
September 13, 2014
"Which Jeff?"
"Fat bald, fat bald!"
Years after reading this book, that line still makes me laugh out loud.
"Fat bald, fat bald!"
Years after reading this book, that line still makes me laugh out loud.
June 20, 2015
It's kind of awful, but I loved it. The characters are so unlikeable that I must love them, too.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews