Fagone, Horsemen of the Esophagus

Whoever thought of the title deserves a medal. Best junk-culture book I've read yet. These things always follow a familiar trajectory:
1. this bizarre subculture, which I had mocked, can be sort of interesting if you really get into it; so
2. I will follow it for a while and meet the unusual personalities and live the life, in some measure.
3. They will strike me as much more normal than I thought, and I will make some connections; therefore,
4. I will kinda get into it, horrifying my spouse/coworkers/fellow writers, who I will suddenly discover are more square than I'd thought; until
5. I will have some negative epiphany where I get disgusted with all of this, suddenly realize how far I've traveled from my moorings, and have to take a break; later, having taken said break and recuperated,
6. I will sum it all up in terms of history and the Meaning of America

Think I'm kidding? Try, among many others, Sam Fussell's Muscle, Hunter Thompson's Hell's Angels, or Thomas Hackett's Slaphappy, all of which I also recommend. (Was hoping Slaphappy would be the perfect wrestling book I've always awaited, but it's not quite; probably the closest I've yet seen anyone come, though.) This one does go a little meaning-making overboard toward the end, when Fagone gets worried that it really does mean nothing at all, so he keeps ladling interpretations atop one another--which does seem appropriate for the topic of competitive eating anyway. Before that, though, he does a great job of telling the tales and finding significance where it seems to lie rather than clomping a big Theory atop it all. Highlights: a discussion of what happens, uh, after the eating stops; mostly non-mocking discussion and analysis of some lyrics by Eric "Badlands" Booker (buy his second album, Hungry and Focused II, here), who raps about competitive eating; a surprisingly sweet interlude with American wildman Coondog O'Karma and the legendary Japanese eating machine Kobayashi (a paradigm-shattering 50 dogs at the Nathan's hot-dog contest) at an Indians game, where all the athletes flock to his side. Plus ballyhoo, grotesqueries, the Eagles cheerleaders, and gonzo eating galore.

Comments

[Ben Casnocha]

The Atlantic had a piece on competitive eating last month or the one before.