Fettfleck [literally: Fat Stain] is the first novel by Diana Kempff. It has not been translated into English (yet).
Finished on: 8.2.2025

Content Note: child abuse, suicide, (critical treatment of) fatmisia

Plot:
The girl comes from a rich, educated family, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean that much since she is also fat and her parents aren’t all that interested in her, especially since showing her off doesn’t work that well. The other children around her aren’t much kinder, so she grows up very much alone.

Fettfleck is a slim book, but one that carries quite a punch. Even more so because the protagonist here is not just some poor victim. She is an acerbic observer with a resistant streak, an unwillingness to be broken by her shitty surroundings.

Fettfleck was Kempff’s first novel and remains the book she is best known for, probably also because there are autobiographic undertones here that play into the fact that Kempff’s father was famous, a renouned pianist. But to me, that part was the least interesting bit about the novel.

I don’t think that Fettfleck was ever translated from German (into any language), and to translate it would be quite a challenge given that it is written in a child’s speaking voice for the most part. The language changes and becomes more refined as the narrating child becomes older but to transfer this to another language seems almost impossible. Particularly because it allows Kempff to play with words a lot.

This also gives the book a strong sense of humor, although not in the funny haha kind of sense, more in the way that makes you choke on your own laughter a little. The realities that the girl here experiences and that many fat (former) children, me included, can probably relate to are not light in the slightest, exacerbated further by the outright physical abuse the girl experiences from both other children and her parents. (Fortunately that part never was my personal experience.)

But through it all, the girl shows an admirable sense of self, a reflected analysis of the things she is dealt with somewhere between quiet acceptance (the world is just a shitty place) and resilience (but I refuse to be destroyed by it), a wonderful mix that we don’t get too often in characters, especially not in female characters, doubly especially when they are victims. There is certainly a bit of anger to it, but that is not the overarching emotion, I’d say. What stands out more than the anger is the stubbornness.

It’s not always a breezy read, despite it’s short length. It’s too dense for it. But it is worth working your way through it and to arrive at its end feeling like you learned something true.

Summarizing: excellent.