Pigtopia

by Kitty Fitzgerald

Book Overview

Hailed as a "tour de force" (Los Angeles Times) and a "surprisingly sweet story" (Entertainment Weekly), Kitty Fitzgeralds Pigtopia is a spellbinding debut, featuring one of the most singular... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1401352510
• ISBN13: 9781401352516
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Miramax Books
• Length: 247 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A sensitive, moving tale

Jack Plum was born disfigured and labeled a monster by an abusive mother - but he's created a haven in his cellar, shared with his beloved pet pigs - and is happy until he meets neighbor Holly, who changes his world for the better until the outside intervenes. A sensitive, moving tale of a sheltered boy's entry into a non-abusive world will attract a wide range of leisure readers.

Wow! What a great book!!!

My wife bought me this book plus 4 others for my Birthday last June. This was the last of those books that I read and little did I know that I had saved BEST for last! Just a great book! I won't get into the story here because I feel too many reviews give away too much of the plot. Just pick this one up! You won't regret it!

Deserves SIX Stars!

This little gem of a book is an absolute knockout! It will stand with classics such as The Lord of the Flies, Frankenstein, Beauty and the Beast (in a macabre way) and more. NOT for the reader who has a low tolerance for gore. Fascinating double narration by the two main characters. Wildly creative. Unless the book bigots object, and they are sure to do so, it will top the middle and high school reading lists and should be equally popular with adults. Remember, there are some very gory descriptions (more imagined in the mind of the reader than actually described), so don't read it after a nice meal. SIX stars!

A book to make one dream and wonder

This fine work of literature is suspenseful yet thought provoking. From the back cover description I knew that the relationship between the teenaged girl and a thirty year old freak who looks like a pig and secretly keeps pigs couldn't last. Nevertheless, I wanted to find out how it would all end, and Ms. Fitzgerald did a good job keeping up the suspense. There was plenty of food for thought as well making one think of man's inhumanity and discrimination towards other men. For example this quote from Jack Plum (the pig boy). "To fetch resting I think in on piglegends for calming. It is said of Quinling, what made first humanpig bonding, long time back--maybe he had not, then pigs would not get butchered. The reckoning of this was, coming full aware of pig cleverness, humankind did have reason to slaughter. This is as some tribe persons did have reason to slaughter. This is as some tribe persons did to eat of strong enemy people and take in their strengths. And it is also reasoned to keep pigs in a down place, cast away of no acknowledgement." Later on in the book Holly Lock reaches puberty shortly before she is forced to give up the pig palace. One could see the story as a passage from childhood to adulthood. The meaning of the ending left me wondering and dreaming. (I'm not really sure I got it.) But it was good nonetheless. The prose is a pleasure to read. It was a good idea to bounce back and forth from the pig boy's narration to Holly Lock's. Reading the pig boy's language non-stop for 250 pages would have been tough. The characters are far the most part realistic. The wicked mother in the wheelchair could be considered an easy stereotype, but there is nothing wrong with that. I've been accused of using easy stereotypes myself. Disabled people are often used as villians because their physical disability supposedly makes them twisted in some way. It's time to retire that device, but it doesn't really hurt this beautiful book at all. Mark Gelbart author of Talk Radio, the book feared by radio talk show hosts www.mark-gelbart.com

A modern classic

I bought this in the UK on the way home.It swept me off my feet. I couldn't put it down. The stylish device of the two narrators with totally different voices viewing the same time period is amazing, especially the unique voice of the wonderful Jack Plum. It's a voice designed through isolation and yearning and cuts right to the heart. This is a story of reaching out for love and in the process losing innocence. It has a gothic sweep with macabre elements but is essentially a fable for our times when greed and short sightedness is eroding our humanity to each other. It should be essential reading for anyone over 13 years old.