FAT WOMAN Leon Rooke. Toronto, General Publishing, c1980, 1982. 174pp, paper, $3.95. ISBN 0-7736-7026-2. Adult. Reviewed by donalee Moulton-Barrett. Volume 10 Number 4. 1982 November. Fat Woman is a funny, compassionate, and humane look at one woman and the people, predicaments, and memories that are her life. On one hand, Fat Woman is merely a simple tale of a single day in the life of Ella Mae Hopkins. But on the other hand, Fat Woman is a superbly crafted story that creates in its first few pages a woman who is at once everywoman and her own woman. Ella Mae has a weight problem, and much of Fat Woman deals with her obsession for food and the guilt that accompanies, and ironically causes, this obsession. But the novel is also about the other major influences in Ella Mac's life— her husband, her family, her childhood. They are all a part of Ella Mae, a part of what she wants to be and, perhaps, the reason(s) she'll never be what she wants to be. An excellent book, good enough to win the Governor General's Award for fiction. In fact, it did. donalee Moulton-Barrett, Halifax, NS.