The Fat Man
Maurice Gee
A Puffin Book
142p pbk
ISBN: 0-14-131017-0
An unbelievably fat mans out for revenge… a starved boy out for chocolate... an old lady with an enormous fortune.
Colin
Potter is a hungry boy who lives in a poor family outside of Auckland. On
an exploration to a creek, he comes across a bar of chocolate belonging to
an incredibly fat man named Herbert Muskie. The fat man catches Colin, and
he is forced to break into an old lady hermit’s house for him. What he
finds is a large fortune stashed away.
Later
on in the story, Herbert reveals that he went to school with Colin’s
parents, who were the two most popular people in the school. Herbert,
being fat, was a pariah.
Things
get more complicated when the old lady turns out to be the fat man’s
mother. She has said in her will that Herbert gets the entire fortune. A
week later and she is dead after being murdered and it looks like
Herbert’s done the job.
The
fat man tries to force Colin’s father into becoming a burglar and he
barely gets away. The enraged fat man kidnaps his daughter Verna and Colin
and heads for the bush but the police are hot on the trail.
The
book was good in writing, but the plot is confused in the middle and it is
tricky to follow the story in some parts. However, it was a very good book
and well deserving of an award.
Matthew,
aged 14, Canberra, ACT
The Fat Man is a great read - I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially
the ending Maurice Gee has a great sense of humor with a zest for the
weird and extraordinary. Although
the script is sort of set in the 50’s around the time of the depression
you can still relate to every thing including the fat man! Although some
of the scenes were unclear to me, the story managed to be beautifully
brought out. This book is
suitable for people over the age of 13 because some of the concepts may be
too mature for younger readers. I read out a paragraph to a few friends
and got a very good response.
Sam, aged 15, Canberra, ACT
