Food for Fiction
Ibi Kaslik dissects a misunderstood disorder
By Ian McGillis - It was probably inevitable. Write a debut novel called Skinny, in which you do an almost frighteningly good job of getting inside the head of a young woman with an eating disorder, and people may make certain assumptions. Ibi Kaslik, the 30-year-old Montrealer in question, has heard it before, to the point where she anticipates the end of the query. Does she worry about becoming…
By Ian McGillis - It was probably inevitable. Write a debut novel called Skinny, in which you do an almost frighteningly good job of getting inside the head of a young woman with an eating disorder, and people may make certain assumptions. Ibi Kaslik, the 30-year-old Montrealer in question, has heard it before, to the point where she anticipates the end of the query. Does she worry about becoming…
”The poster girl for anorexia?” she laughs. “Well, I’ve put the subject out there, so I have to make peace with the chance that that’s what’s going to happen. It doesn’t bother me at all.”
Kaslik can afford to feel secure. Skinny is a novel that can stand proud on its own. Yes, it’s “about” anorexia, but it’s also about a whole emotional world where anorexia can hatch and flourish. Sibling love/rivalry, family dysfunction, the exhilaration and confusion of sexual awakening, suburban anomie, the identity questions at the heart of the immigrant experience – all these and more converge on an early twenty-something former medical student named Giselle. Self-aware enough to say things like “Denying myself food was proof that I was stronger, better than most people” yet seemingly powerless to stop the self-damage, she’s a character whose contradictions can drive the reader crazy, and all the more fascinating for that.
