Blue Bicycle Books, Charleston, SC

Author Luncheon with Tommy Tomlinson, The Elephant in the Room, Fri., Jan. 25, 12 pm

Join us Fri., Jan. 25, 12 pm for lunch at Halls Signature Events (5 Faber St.), as Tommy Tomlinson discusses his memoir The Elephant in the Room (Simon and Schuster, hb., 256 pp., $27).

Tickets are $32 for the three-course luncheon, or $64 to add a signed copy of the book.

Get tickets here.

When he was almost fifty years old, Tommy Tomlinson weighed an astonishing—and dangerous—460 pounds, at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, unable to climb a flight of stairs without having to catch his breath, or travel on an airplane without buying two seats. Raised in a family that loved food, he had been aware of the problem for years, seeing doctors and trying diets from the time he was a preteen. He was only one of millions of Americans struggling with weight, body image, and a relationship with food that puts them at major risk.

Intimate and insightful, The Elephant in the Room is Tomlinson’s chronicle of meeting those people, taking the first steps towards health, and trying to understand how, as a nation, we got to this point. He brings us along on an unforgettable journey of self-discovery that is a candid and sometimes brutal look at the everyday experience of being constantly aware of your size. Over the course of the book, he confronts these issues head on and chronicles the practical steps he has to take—big and small—to lose weight by the end.

Tommy Tomlinson has written for publications including EsquireESPN the MagazineSports IllustratedForbesGarden & Gun, and many others. He spent twenty-three years as a reporter and local columnist for the Charlotte Observer, where he was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in commentary. Tommy and his wife, Alix Felsing, live in Charlotte.