Kean, Louise 1974-

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Kean, Louise 1974-

PERSONAL:

Born 1974. Education: University of East Anglia, graduated.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Richmond, England.

CAREER:

Works as a marketing manager at a London film company. Producer of video programs, including Ed's Thing: The Music of Life on Mars, 2006; Get Sykes: An Interview with Production Designer Brian Sykes, 2006; and Take a Look at the Lawman: The Making of Life on Mars, 2006.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Toasting Eros, HarperCollins (London, England), 2002.

Boyfriend in a Dress, HarperCollins (London, England), 2003.

The Perfect Ten, HarperCollins (London, England), 2005, published as The Perfect Fit: Fat-Free Dreams Just Don't Taste the Same, Harper (New York, NY), 2007.

Material Girl, Harper (London, England), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Writer and film producer Louise Kean explores the issues of female body image, weight loss, self-esteem, and the profound personal effects each can have on a woman in her novel The Perfect Fit: Fat-Free Dreams Just Don't Taste the Same. Published in England as The Perfect Ten, the novel tells the story of Sunny Weston, an overweight woman who has long struggled with her size and appearance. Kean, a woman who also experienced what it's like to remold herself by losing a great deal of weight, brings a personal perspective to the observations in her novel. The book "has one central issue, which is the influence of body image on female self esteem," Kean commented in an interview on the HarperCollins Web site. "Sunny has always been overweight, and has spent her years absorbing the disapproving looks of strangers. She has allowed their negativity to define her, silently agreeing with them when they whisper their spiteful slurs at her in the street."

For Sunny, it seems that happiness will come only with being thin. An Internet entrepreneur, she is successful in business but a failure at love, which she blames on her weight and appearance. After finally losing one hundred pounds, she finds herself looking at the world from the perspective of the fit, slender person she has always wanted to be. Yet her success has brought out unexpectedly negative reactions from some of the women around her, some of whom feel threatened by her hard-won physical improvements. "A positive change for one woman can dredge up negativity in somebody else, and the result is that everybody ends up feeling a little bruised. It's a natural reaction, but it's still a shame," Kean observed on the HarperCollins Web site. Booklist reviewer Lynne Welch commented favorably on the book, calling it an "introspective novel of self-discovery and personal growth."