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Pigtopia [Hardcover]

Kitty Fitzgerald (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

Price: $22.95 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
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Book Description

October 5, 2005
From novelist, playwright, and poet Kitty Fitzgerald comes one of the sweetest and most singular characters since Christopher Boone in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Society has rejected Jack Plum: born with a disfigurement, he is labeled either a monster or an imbecile by his abusive mother and thoughtless neighbors. But Jack has created a haven, his "pigtopia," a shelter in his cellar, with a tunnel out into the woods, built with his long-lost father, and shared with his beloved pet pigs. Then Jack meets Holly Lock, a sensitive young teenager who lives nearby, and offers her a piglet. Together they forge an unlikely and beautiful friendship. But society and fate intervene and Jack's secret world is threatened by forces beyond his control.

In September 2004, the sale of Pigtopia touched off a maelstrom of activity in the international publishing community. Sold in fifteen countries, it is already being viewed as a contender for literary attention and prizes.

In language of stunning beauty, Kitty Fitzgerald has created a startlingly original world with characters that will capture your imagination.


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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Irish playwright Fitzgerald's prose reads like the saw-sound of a Gaelic folksong, with most of the macabre moral fable told in the particular patois of Jack Plum, a boy with a monstrous appearance but greater depths of humanity and understanding than most "normal" people. Labeled a freak or an imbecile, Jack lives alone with his abusive mother. His only refuge is the cellar shelter conceived of by his long-absent father as a hidden place to raise pigs. "Without the pigs I would be forsaken of love and perhaps I could turn into anger shapes like Mam does and want to put out blame. I know these types of stirrings—the want to make hurt." Only when he befriends the awkward, young Holly Lock does human friendship enrich his life. But the two share dark secrets, and the deeper and more genuine their friendship becomes, the greater the threat to Jack's "Palace for pigs." This beautifully crafted story retells the classic lesson of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, with much of the innocence and the horror intact. While Fitzgerald brings the book to a somewhat hurried end that plays with the conventions of classical Greek tragedy, this debut novel is still satisfying and heartbreaking. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

The center of this novel is Jack Plum, a thirty-something suffering from macrocephaly, which leaves him isolated and feeling like a monster. His alcoholic mother, with whom he lives, blames him for her troubles and for his father's departure. To escape from the insults and abuse heaped on him by his mother and the townspeople-he's particularly persecuted by a group of young boys-Jack spends most of his time in a "pig palace" in his basement, where he keeps a herd of the animals that his father taught him to love. The narration alternates between Jack and his friend Holly, a girl struggling with puberty and her mother's new boyfriend. Holly has a conventional voice that tends to point up the more trite and facile elements of the plot, but Jack's wisely na•ve insights give the story a fairy-tale charm.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Miramax; First edition. edition (October 5, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1401352510
  • ISBN-13: 978-1401352516
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,518,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
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4 star:
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Deserves SIX Stars!, January 13, 2006
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This review is from: Pigtopia (Hardcover)
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!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A sensitive, moving tale, December 9, 2006
This review is from: Pigtopia (Paperback)
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.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! What a great book!!!, October 14, 2006
This review is from: Pigtopia (Hardcover)
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!
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Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
lemon geranium, brain space, dark fall, heart space
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Jack Plum, Holly Lock, Pardes Wood, Farmer Cotton, Colin Driver, Blandish Butchers, Catch the Wind
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