Photo By Nancy Essex

Cheryl Peck, with her feline partner-in-crime, Sir Babycakes, dishes hearty helpings o' laughs.

As self-deprecating as Cheryl Peck is, she is apologetic, and she paints an honest picture, to the best of her knowledge. The first-time author begins her book, Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs, with a brief disclaimer about possible historical inaccuracies in her accounts of cats (sometimes told from the perspective of her cat, Sir Babycakes), family and "the misadventures of a woman of size."

And she promises she hasn't lived an extraordinary life. Which is a lie.

The 55-year-old Cold Water, Mich., native might think she's led an average life, growing up in "farm country." Yet she proves what counts isn't exactly the kind of life one's lived, but how the story's delivered.

Peck's colorful musings cover everything from her experiences with coming out to her father -- which she never did; he just knows, she writes -- to her biased look at vegetarianism.

"First they gave up fat (flavor) and now they have given up meat (food)," she muses. "In another year or so, I suspect, we'll give up going out to eat at all and just wander from cabbage patch to beet bed."

Her stories also tackle issues of being physically incapable of peeing anywhere but a white porcelain bowl and questions like, "How many lesbians does it takes to operate a cell phone?" Interestingly enough, it takes 10.

Peck's flair for storytelling drove her to write Fat Girls. That, and friends begging her for years to chronicle her famous tales. Having written her entire life, although not professionally, she always saw herself writing a book.

"I thought if I had to write on a regular basis, I would hate it," Peck says from her home in Three Rivers, Mich. Nonetheless, she stuck with writing in her spare time (currently working on a sequel). She originally self-published Fat Girls for friends and family through friend and author Mary Appelhof's vermicomposting/publishing company, whereby worms make fertilizer out of trash. Publishers Weekly caught wind of it from local independent bookstore owner Tom Lowry. Once the piece was printed, New York publishers started calling. Thus began the fairy tale.

"I'm just amazed that it's gotten this far," Peck laughs, and admits, "I've met a number of struggling writers who work much harder at getting books published."

Peck also continues to write poetry, which is sprinkled throughout Fat Girls. The verse still surges in her, but in spurts.

While the few poems in the book are relatively somber (and toward the end the narratives as well), Peck always offsets the weightiness with humor -- often about weight.

"I had to go for the drama," she says of her fiction-writing style. "But in my entire life I've always dealt with drama through laughter."

While the anecdotes are funny, Peck is sensitive to her audience of size.

"I'm not as nice of a person as I come off in the book," she claims, then adds, seriously, "I've never seen myself as a spokesperson for large women. ... I wanted to create a book that was kind to large people. There's far too much out there that's really cruel.

"I'm not saying it's a wonderful thing to be large, obviously because of health issues. But the truth is very few of us have actual control over the size of our body."

Nor can we pick and choose our family. (Peck's the oldest, or "Least Wee," of two sisters and two brothers.)

"My family has always been so supportive of everything I've done," she says, when asked about her family's response to the brutal truths in her book. Did knowing they would be her original audience restrain her from recording certain memories?

"When the book came out, my family said two things: One was, 'Watch what you say around Cheryl -- she'll put it in a book.' The other was, 'Ask Cheryl. She's the one who remembers everything.' "

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CHERYL PECK will read and sign Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs 1 p.m. Saturday at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. There will be no actual lawn chairs.