One man's frank, funny and inspiring account of losing his job and finding his life.

Nigel Marsh is a stressed, overweight mortgage slave struggling to balance a high-pressured career, a marriage and the demands of four small children under eight.

Then the unthinkable happened - he loses his job. After the initial shock (and some unpleasant surgery), Nigel decides to embrace life outside the office and spend a year taking stock.

What follows is a candid and often hilarious account of how he attempts to master the art of hands-on parenting, lose 20 kilos, train for an ocean swimming race and come to terms with the growing realisation that he's an alcoholic. Along the way we discover what men (or this man) really think about sex in marriage, being good dads, work, love, football, family, religion, self-help books and sharks, just for starters.

Fat, Forty and Fired is a rare gem, a highly entertaining, thought-provoking and inspiring memoir about falling off the hamster wheel and surviving. As Nigel says, 'I don't have a catchy slogan that sums up what I learnt from my year off. I do know, however, that men aren't from Mars and fat isn't a feminist issue. Men are from Earth and fat is fat. I don't claim to have usable wisdom for anyone else. All I can say is that I lived the dream of dropping out, and this is how it was for me...'