Pigtopia - Hardcover

Kitty Fitzgerald is an Irish novelist, poet, and playwright. Her previous works include Small Acts of Treachery, Snapdragons, and Marge.

"Coming-of-age novel" is a publishing term that encompasses much but describes little. It's as bland a signifier for a book as "loves the beach at sunset" is for a potential date: "Coming-of-age story seeks like-minded reader for long-term relationship or quick read. Vital statistics: 227 pages and $23." In the same way, to call Pigtopia, Hot Fudge Sundae Blues and Two Harbors "coming-of-age" novels seems inadequate. All of them explore the landscape of emotional loss that brings with it the chance for growth and greater humanity. Parents -- loving, abusive and absent -- shape the characters and plots in these novels, but each writer has crafted a distinct tale of redemption and the sacred ties that bind us, or as a character says in Pigtopia, "All of us, everywhere, swapping the breath." Redemption through sacrifice marks Pigtopia, a novel by Irish poet and playwright Kitty Fitzgerald in which pigs and language dance. Fabled and lyrical, it tells the story of a friendship between Jack Plum, disfigured since birth by a large, misshapen head that his mother refers to as a boar's head, and Holly Lock, a young woman on the cusp of adolescence. Disfigurement often endows a character with mystical or shaman-like powers, and Jack is no exception to that cliché. He is wise and kind beyond his years, unlike his invalid mother, who has succumbed to meanness and liquor-enhanced delirium. He finds solace in memories of his father -- gone more than 20 years -- and in the pig family that he raises in a secret underground pen. His mother and his deformity keep him isolated from their small Irish town, but he remains deeply observant of the world around him, including Holly. The book alternates between Holly and Jack as narrators, and Fitzgerald perfectly captures the voice of the 14-year-old girl. A fatherless, flat-chested lover of plants, Holly laments her appearance as she tries on new clothes for her birthday party: "The short purple dress she'd bought me for my birthday turned me into a cross-dresser. I tried walking around in it, but my knees seemed to kick out so much they kept catching on the hem. They should give lessons on how to walk in a tight skirt." As Holly grows more and more alienated from her peers and her mother, her friendship with Jack develops, but it is a friendship that the world will not tolerate. Fitzgerald's striking prose carries us through several dark happenings. For instance, here's Jack preparing his mother's body for burial: "I sing favorite songs as I make preparations of Mam's empty flesh trolley what will chase her soul to some next place, where we might collide up some future time." In the end, as all good stories do, Pigtopia takes us places both familiar and fantastic. Redemption is the furthest thing from the mind of Layla Jay, a 13-year-old trying to survive adolescence in the '60s. She's worried about bosoms that blossom behind schedule and making the cheerleading squad. As the narrator of Hot Fudge Sundae Blues, Bev Marshall's third book about life in Zebulon, Miss., Layla Jay frets with fervor and good cause. Her father died years earlier, and her mother, Frieda, regularly disappears into liquor bottles or new infatuations or even the well of salvation -- a detour on her road to destruction that results in a new husband for her and a stepfather for Layla Jay. Alas, he's a visiting revival preacher who backslides with zeal and has a leering eye for Layla Jay. The book opens as Layla Jay fakes a conversion experience to gain the attention of a young man. The first half of the novel veers wildly about, elements thrown in here and there from car crashes to a dying grandmother to the lecherous stepfather and beyond. Only Marshall's sprinkling of humor keeps us hanging on. Frieda faces a prison sentence, and Layla Jay must decide whether to lie again to save her. The best of this heartfelt narrative centers on Marshall's characters as they explore how deceit changes their lives and what it means to be moral. Kate Benson renders a dual landscape of film and life, of small-town Minnesota and glitzy Hollywood, in her first novel, Two Harbors. The story is narrated by 19-year-old Casey, whose mother, Lila, abandoned her 10 years ago. Spurred on by another abandonment, Casey undertakes the journey from Two Harbors, Minn., to Hollywood in search of Lila. Her well-meaning, if imperfect, father waits patiently for her return. Years earlier, when he found Casey wrapped in her absent mother's red kimono, he pointed out the robe's two possible stories: Was it a gift from a Japanese soldier or did Lila buy it at Wal-Mart? He is smart enough to advise, "Try not to give too much value, Case, to things that don't deserve it." At once cinematic and particular, Benson's novel of duplicity and mystery moves from the opening scene of underwater make-believe to the last scene in a movie theater. Confusion reigns for both Casey and us as the book nears its conclusion, but Benson pens a suspenseful end to this journey of letting go. Her evocative story, with images of water seamlessly woven throughout, expresses the longing for a safe harbor that all of us experience. Brenda Jernigan is the author of "Every Good and Perfect Gift."

Reviewed by Brenda Jernigan
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