The Pig Comes to Dinner

by Joseph Caldwell

Overview

Back to his familiar mischief is the obstreperous creature that romped so riotously through The Pig Did It, the best-selling first novel in Joseph Caldwell’s Pig Trilogy. But in Mr. Caldwell’s entertaining porcine sequel, The Pig Comes to Dinner, the porker has some more serious business to attend to. All of the charming characters of the previous book are present again in this delightful new story. Kitty McCloud has bought an ancient Irish castle with the profits from her popular revisions of classic novels like Jane Eyre, and is now hard at work on her “correction” of George Eliot’s “big mess of a novel The Bloody Mill on the Bloody Floss – the added expletives a measure of Kitty’s consternation.” Kitty’s new husband, Kieran Sweeney, is tending the castle’s herd of cows when he isn’t locked in loving if contentious wrestling holds with his fiery new bride, his former rival in one of their district’s oldest blood feuds. Kitty’s American cousin, Aaron McCloud, has arrived with his new wife, the former Lolly McKeever, to redeliver to Kitty and Kieran their wedding gift of the troublesome pig, who is not at all welcome at the castle. But over their lighthearted discord hangs a weightier problem – Kitty’s new home is inhabited by two comely ghosts from out of the castle’s troubled past. How this haunting couple is dealt with serves only to embellish the allure and humor of Mr. Caldwell’s uniquely theatrical storytelling.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781883285395
Publisher:	Delphinium
Publication date:	04/13/2010
Pages:	255
Sales rank:	351,329
Product dimensions:	0.00(w) x 0.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

A playwright and novelist whose previous books include In Such Dark Places, The Deer at the River, Under the Dog Star, The Uncle from Rome and Bread for the Baker’s Child, Joseph Caldwell has been awarded the Rome Prize for Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

"It's hardly surprising that Joseph Caldwell pays such keen attention to tricks of language in this novel, because he uses language so beautifully. That he is also funny as hell, glazes the pig."

Roger Rosenblatt

"This charming, at times hilarious, tale serves as a satisfying story as well we a quiet commentary on the sympathetic relationship between imagination and compassion."

J. Greg Matthews

"A comic triumph as well as a touching remembrance of Ireland's bloody past."

Jay Strafford

"A comic triumph as well as a touching remembrance of Ireland's bloody past."

"This charming, at times hilarious, tale serves as a satisfying story as well we a quiet commentary on the sympathetic relationship between imagination and compassion."

"It's hardly surprising that Joseph Caldwell pays such keen attention to tricks of language in this novel, because he uses language so beautifully. That he is also funny as hell, glazes the pig."

From the Publisher

In Caldwell's fun second installment to his Pig Trilogy (after The Pig Did It), Irish writer Kitty McCloud and husband Kieran Sweeney battle to stave off specters threatening to destroy their newfound nuptial bliss. The beautiful ghosts of Taddy and Brid haunt Castle Kissane, the couple's new abode, as well as their dreams and desires. Then the very real Lord Shaftoe appears after his family's two-century-long absence to reclaim the keep. Onto the scene trots the "lesbian" pig, whose ramblings and rootings could destroy the lovely estate-or help save it. Throughout, the whimsical tale is held aloft by a fanciful if sometimes long-winded lyricism that well conveys the spirit of its Irish setting and characters. In this story, humor and sadness, the past and the present, all live side-by-side, and it is all Kitty can do to tell them apart, much less keep the ghosts at bay. (May)

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Publishers Weekly

This second in a projected trilogy begun with The Pig Did It reintroduces readers to the wildly successful and volatile author of "corrected" classic novels, Kitty McCloud; her hard-working husband, Kieran Sweeney; Kitty's swine-herding nephew, Aaron McCloud; and the nameless pig with a twitching pink nose for trouble. Rolling in royalties, Kitty and Kieran purchase an ancient Irish castle in County Kerry only to discover that their new demesne is haunted by the ghosts of young lovers Taddy and Brid, wrongfully accused of treason and executed 200 years before. Kitty and Kieran's desire to release the tragic pair from limbo is complicated by the appearance of Lord Shaftoe, the alleged rightful owner of the castle. Meanwhile, the mischievous pig sets in motion a chain of events that ultimately reveals the surprising resolution to everyone's problems. This charming, at times hilarious tale serves as a satisfying story as well as a quiet commentary on the sympathetic relationship between imagination and compassion.
—J. Greg Matthews

Library Journal

The second volume in Caldwell's projected trilogy (The Pig Did It, 2008)-a hybrid of farce and Irish ghost story. Hack novelist Kitty McCloud (her latest "correction" of a classic is called The Bloody Mill on the Bloody Floss) and new husband Kieran Sweeney have bought a drafty, dilapidated castle in County Kerry. There they cohabit with cows, the mischievous pig of the title and a peculiar couple of handsome teens in homespun whom they take to be squatters. It soon becomes apparent that the squatters are the raw-necked, restless ghosts of Brid and Taddy, attractive youths who centuries earlier were hanged by the English Lord Shaftoe when he took possession of Castle Kissane. Shaftoe caught wind of a plot to blow up his castle with a cache of gunpowder hidden on the premises and made an example of Brid and Taddy. The plot thickens when a descendant of Shaftoe surfaces and with the courts' backing stakes a claim as rightful owner of Castle Kissane, at which point the pig unearths a strongbox that divulges the whereabouts of the gunpowder. Plot contrivances abound, among them that Kitty half-falls for the ghost of Taddy; Kieran is smitten by Brid; and both spouses conceive a deep jealousy. Caldwell's style is histrionic and hammy; he counts on winning the reader's indulgence by way of snappy dialogue and Irish craic. Playful, at times even charming, but not light-footed enough to make up for its heavy-handedness.

Kirkus Reviews

This charming, at times hilarious tale serves as a satisfying story as well as a quiet commentary on the sympathetic relationship between imagination and compassion.”
—School Library Journal

Richmond Times-Dispatch