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Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs has been compared to the writing of Erma Bombeck. It seems that publishers and publicists feel obliged, when pushing an author who is funny, to compare women to Erma Bombeck and men to Bill Bryson or Dave Barry. Sometimes they awkwardly compare a woman to Bill Bryson -- "a female Bill Bryson!" They never compare a funny male author to Erma Bombeck -- "a male Erma Bombeck!" But I digress. Cheryl Peck has a voice that is all her own. These short pieces are not hysterically funny. They would not make a good stand-up routine. But they are very well-written. Peck turns seemingly mundane subjects such as growing tomatoes and her first chocolate malt into compelling essays. The pieces about her cat, Babycakes, wander precariously close to the edge of precious, but, to my mind, never go too far. The essay about not coming out to her father was thoughtful, and powerful in its understated style. I especially love the story of how this book came to be published. Friends of Peck convinced her to write down the amusing stories she told them and she finally did, and another friend helped her self-publish it as a book for her family and friends. And now here it is, doing quite well on Amazon.com and at my neighborhood bookstore and at the local library. Well done!
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