In a Pig's Ear

By Paul Bryers

Book Overview

Milan, a cynical ex-professor of psychology, escaped from the bleak Czechoslovakia of the 1960's to become a Hollywood psychiatrist to the stars. The Prague he knew fades into memory, and with the end of the Cold War seems to disappear altogether. But when he returns years later to film an Arthurian legend, the past is waiting. Stasi agents, abandoned castles, and ugly visions of a fascist Europe plague Milan, and he finds himself imprisoned for a grisly murder he didn't commit. Jailed once again in the land of his birth, Milan turns to a pig, his prison companion, to tell his story. Savage and humorous, In a Pig's Ear is a harrowing inquiry into the mystery of identity.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374527687
• ISBN13: 9780374527686
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 277 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Unique and Memorable

I picked up In A Pig's Ear from a bargain bin at local book chain and have to say that it was one my most memorable reads. The author has a unique narrative style that provides a truly immersive text that is part fantasy, part thriller, part poetry. Definitely worth picking it up.

King Arthur redux

Paul Bryers weaves an engrossing story around the return of a successful Hollywood filmmaker (Adam Epstein) to Berlin - where he had been born in the horrific final days of WWII. It is now the late 1990s and a murky,unsettling and slightly sinister post-reunification Berlin serves as the background to a story of ambiguous parentage and personal redemption. A growing sense of menace (neo-Nazi activity flourishes, Adam is drawn into what appears to be an intricate web of deceit...) and the cooly ironic tone of the (Merlin-like)narrator combine to make this an above average 'literary' novel with thriller overtones.