Jerry Stahl, I, Fatty: a novel (Bloomsbury/Raincoast Books, 2005)
In the early years of the last century movies didn't have a soundtrack. They were silent, often shown accompanied by live piano music. But the images on screen had to be expressive. There were a couple of geniuses when it came to drawing laughs from the crowds who attended the flicks. Chaplin, Keaton, and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. And the greatest of these was . . . well . . . it depends who you ask. Buster Keaton of the deadpan visage, Charlie Chaplin's "Little Tramp," or "Fatty" Arbuckle, the most athletic, and graceful big man the cinema has ever seen. Arbuckle died when he was only 46 years old, but his career was essentially over much earlier. In his last days he was a forgotten man. His film career was ended by scandal. Maybe the biggest scandal to hit Hollywood until the "O.J. case!"
I, Fatty is a first person narrative of Arbuckle's life story. It contains the ups and downs, the successes and failures and everything in between. It is a non-stop rollercoaster of a read. Once you get on board, hang on tight! Jerry Stahl (who knows about Hollywood, and about substance abuse) takes the reader right inside Arbuckle's world, and inside his head.
You really get the sense that Stahl is channeling Arbuckle, this world is recreated so authentically. He tells about the early days, of child-abuse as his father beat him unmercifully, about his start on the stage as a "singer of illustrated songs," and follows him through the heady years on the silent screen as one of the best paid stars they had! A million dollar man!
Arbuckle's life was not a happy one. Too much trauma. Too much booze. Too much stress. Stahl tells it all. And the book picks up speed as it runs up to the inexorable conclusion on the 12th floor of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, and the wild party that took place one weekend in 1921. By the end of it, a would-be actress named Virginia Rappe would be dead; Roscoe Arbuckle would be charged with rape and manslaughter, and the motion picture industry would be changed forever. Stahl keeps you right in the picture. Arbuckle's "Stahlian" memory repeats events from time to time, from chapter to chapter to give the reader a few more details about something that happened a few pages earlier. At first this is a bit disconcerting. "Didn't he already say that?" you wonder. But then you start to appreciate the technique. That's what real memory is like. We all go back to flesh out our stories. "Oh, by the way, did I tell you. . . ?"
I, Fatty is an invigorating book, providing some answers (and they seem to be the right answers) about a piece of Hollywood history, and telling one heck of a story too!
For a brief biography, and some extras check this Web Site.
