Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home

by Lise Funderburg

Book Overview

The poignant, often comical story of a grown daughter getting to know her dying father in his last months in the rural town he'd fled as a young man.

Pig Candy is the poignant and often comical story of a grown daughter getting to know her dying father in his last months. During a series of visits with her father to the South he'd escaped as a young black man, Lise Funderburg, the mixed-race author of the acclaimed Black, White,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416547673
• ISBN13: 9781416547679
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A FUNNY & Poignant Family Memoir

This is a terrific memoir of a Philadelphia family with ties to the deep South. Lise Funderburg's portrayals of her father and family are heartwarming, sincere and very, very funny. I don't read this kind of book very often, but Pig Candy is the kind of book that grabs you and doesn't let go. HIGHLY recommended.

Family Memoir

A must read. Especially for the healing professions. Medical students. More. Deserves a place in the "end of life" literature. Those who teach memoir-writing will also be inspired. First-rate family saga of a first-rate family.

It's also funny!

no plot review could do the magic of this book justice--because it's not so much what happens: pickling peaches, say, or, visiting doctors, diners, and rib purveyers. it's the comedic timing, the brilliant, telling details and writing so fine that you can't get through more than a dozen pages without underlining a sentence or two. also, lise is a reliable and honorable narrator who helps you now only understand her relationships but create your own with the complete and complicated characters in the book. it's just too good not to read.

Memorable, poignant and vivid!

George Newton Fundenberg is a cantankeous, opionated, black man from rural Georgia who married a white woman, moved to the North, became a successful real estate broker and is the proud father of three daughters. He is difficult to get along with and even more difficult to please. His daughter, Lise, is determined to do just that, get along with and please him before he dies. In the process, she is introduced to the Southern tradition of roasted pig (pig candy), Southern hospitality and Jim Crow laws. This is a beautifully written, vividly painted memoir and a worthwhile read in its own right. Anyone who has dealt with an aging, ailing parent will identify with Lise's struggles and preserverance to bring her relationship with her father to a healthy but loving closure for both of them.

Should Be Required Reading

Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home--A Memoir Never, not ever, not Amy Tan, not Toni Morrison, not any of my favorites (not even Alice Walker) has shown the ability to expose herself--to bare her proverbial soul, while respecting boundaries; those of her self, her subjects, her family and her readers. I have never known any writer, of any gender, to speak so truly and deeply from within, in such a matter of fact manner while conveying unparrelled integrity, and without manipulation of the readers' emotions. No preaching, no judgment; just accessible values and hopefulness, as if it is an easy, everyday thing to do.