Pigs - by Johanna Stoberock (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

*Featured on TODAY with Hoda and Jenna, as recommended by Read With Jenna book club author Megha Majumdar*

*STARRED BOOKLIST REVIEW*

Four children live on an island that serves as the repository for all the world's garbage. Trash arrives, the children sort it, and then they feed it to a herd of insatiable pigs: a perfect system. But when a barrel washes ashore with a boy inside, the children must decide whether he is more of the world's detritus, meant to be fed to the pigs, or whether he is one of them. Written in exquisitely wrought prose, Pigs asks questions about community, environmental responsibility, and the possibility of innocence.

Review Quotes

"In the popular imagination, pigs simply exist to consume and to be consumed. We revile them because they are seen as gluttonous animals, indiscriminate in their pursuit for satiation, and because they are dirty, wallowing happily in their own filth. Johanna Stoberock's novel Pigs uses these stereotypes--the rapacious, prosaic nature of these beasts--to amplify the grotesque impulse of want and greed inherent in both animal and man."
--The Rumpus

"Pigs reads like a parable or a Greek tragedy... Pithy, earthy language conveys complex truths... Devastating and hopeful, the book champions reform from the inside out."
--Mari Carlson, Foreword Reviews

"Johanna Stoberock's second novel is a grotesque and luminous thriller with a big, swashbuckling allegory at its core, and Stoberock's own magic trick is to populate the island with characters sufficiently rich to elevate the novel far beyond parable or admonition. It's a beautiful book that I can't wait to reread."
--Ted Scheinman, Pacific Standard

"A lyrical, enthralling, and dark-inflected allegory, equal parts Italo Calvino, Angela Carter, and Lord of the Flies."
--Jonathan Lethem, author of A Gambler's Anatomy and The Feral Detective

"Powerful, metaphorical, as fantastical as it is true, Johanna Stoberock's Pigs is a masterpiece. Stoberock scrutinizes mankind's failure to tend to our planet, our children, and our fellow man, and the result is a terrifying, tremendous book, its darkness lit in unpredictable ways by campfires of compassion and hope. What a wise, searing novel for the twenty-first century."
--Sharma Shields, author of The Cassandra and The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac

"Pigs looks unflinchingly at some of the scariest parts of our world--a changing climate, an ocean full of garbage, and us, the fragile animals. Yet within this, there is tremendous beauty and grace--Johanna Stoberock has written a kind of love song to survival, to life itself."
--Ramona Ausubel, author of Awayland and Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty

"This is the writing of a woman who considers the breaking and the growth of beings. I am always struck with her ability to describe uncomfortable beauty. She explores unquestioned roles and rules, the pain we stifle and the pain we commit, and the process of change and release and giving as sacrifice."
--Augusta Sparks Farnum

"A superbly crafted and thoroughly reader absorbing novel by an author with a genuine flair for originality..."
--Midwest Book Review

"In the popular imagination, pigs simply exist to consume and to be consumed. We revile them because they are seen as gluttonous animals, indiscriminate in their pursuit for satiation, and because they are dirty, wallowing happily in their own filth. Johanna Stoberock's novel Pigs uses these stereotypes--the rapacious, prosaic nature of these beasts--to amplify the grotesque impulse of want and greed inherent in both animal and man."
--The Rumpus

"The pigs ate almost constantly now. Good thing they never got full. Sometimes their jaws ached from overuse, but they were ravenous, always."
--Full excerpt at Chicago Review of Books

Psycho Pomp Mag feature

A behind-the-scenes look at the writing of PIGS for Grammar Girl.