Grab the Lapels

All of Me by Venise Berry

I don’t remember where or when I bought this used copy of All of Me by Venise Berry, but I knew it had a fat protagonist, so I took it home. I had assumed Berry’s book was a memoir because of the cover — a real woman’s photo, as you can see — but Berry’s story is about Serpentine, a fat, Black women living in Chicago working as a TV journalist and looking for love, a promotion, and peace in her familial relationships, all of which are problematic, and she attributes the problems to her fat body.

All of Me is a highly structured novel. We open with Serpentine being released from an institution where she was placed after attempting suicide. The resident therapist decides Serpentine is qualified to leave into her sister’s custody if she returns twice weekly to continue therapy. These sessions are what give the plot a shape. Each chapter opens with a paragraph or two of what I assume is Serpentine’s diary. Next, she goes to a therapy session during which the therapists asks questions, and one question will lead her to recall something from the past. The chapter then does a flashback and concludes with Serpentine back in the present in the therapist’s office. If you like structure, this predictability will help you focus on the story. If you want less structure, you may find the repetitive nature of each chapter set up too predictable or “easy.” At first, I felt like the author had landed on a system for shaping her writing and thought it a little amateurish, but then I started to like it because I was never confused about past vs. present timelines.

In the second third of the book, Serpentine visits the therapist and finally explains why she tried to die by suicide. Her tale is the entire section, giving readers a break from the previous structure. Therefore, we spend all our time in the past where Serpentine has put on more weight, causing her new manager to fret because she’s in journalism and doesn’t look “appropriate” for TV. No one wants to see a fat body on their screen, and to prove it, the company hires an outside consultant who does a test screening with viewers, some of whom love Serpentine’s professionalism and personable nature, but others claim she’s just too fat and doesn’t take care of herself. All Black women are queens, one viewer explains, so why wouldn’t she treat her body like she’s a queen?

Throughout the first two third of the novel, I was frustrated with Serpentine. Published in 2000, All of Me had to have been written in the late 90s, meaning author Venise Berry was in the thick of the low-fat revolution in the U.S. Anything low in fat was then deemed healthy, despite dieters still getting fatter. Plus, the new wave of self-esteem and boundary setting that younger Millennials and Gen Z have initiated wasn’t a thing yet. Watching Serpentine be shit on is painful, and given the time period, she internalizes that it’s all her fault. That if she just lost weight, she would be better at everything. While Serpentine is wrong, her life confirms her thoughts. A boy she knew in childhood and loved reappears before her as a man, and while they are in love, he’s also a sexual rover. I do remember in the 90s being under the impression that men have “needs,” and women just need to know that. Men in All of Me have the same perspective. Today, women aren’t putting up with that, and society is panicking over the male loneliness epidemic. Why are more women happily single, Americans ask.

Sadly, Serpentine’s self-worth comes from men hitting on her and her colleagues and viewers telling her she can be a good journalist, rather than knowing she is a smart, valuable human being because she’s put in the work. Slowly, she comes to realize her attitude is incorrect: “Whenever I’ve lost weight I didn’t lose it for me. I lost it for society; to fit in; to be called cute or pretty; to catch a man. It feels good to finally admit that.” As men keep disrespecting her, she loses control of her feelings, handing them over to food. She asks the question many of us do: “What made the experience of eating so soothing? How could the act be so satisfying, yet so destructive?” Here, Berry captures the experience of food and emotions tangled together beautifully. It’s really not willpower, as thin people will tell you. We’re talking about emotional trauma and self-soothing.

In one glorious scene, Serpentine pulls into a bakery to buy donuts because she is devastated. Mentally, she’s warring with not wanting to be fat but wanting to self-sooth. Berry writes, “Serpentine had sworn as a child that once she was grown, she would do what she wanted, when she wanted, and how she wanted. Well, this was what she wanted! … ‘So what?’ she finally screamed in anguish. It was her body! It was her life!” This moment gave me chills, as I know what Serpentine means. If you want to eat something so badly, why do you have to tell yourself no, like you are a child? Do you not have free will? And then, after eating the thing that soothes you, the punishment comes regardless in health negatives. To have a power struggle with yourself is a deeply emotional moment, one that leads us toward the conclusion where Serpentine reveals her suicide attempt.

The last third of All of Me is in the present, back with Serpentine after she was released from the mental health facility. I was so nervous. Would Berry wrap up the story by giving Serpentine the promotion, stumbling into a meet-cute with the perfect man, and having a healing conversation with her mother, who constantly points out Serpentine’s weight? Let’s just say I found the end highly satisfying, keeping All of Me out of cheesy territory that reinforces toxic tropes.

books of winter ☃️❄️🌨️

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