Fable, farce, fantasy or funny, I am not sure what to call “The Pig Did It” by Joseph Caldwell. It is just different from any novel I have read in a long while. It is a short book, 195 pages and is well written, even lyrical. If you pick it up, just be prepared for an unusual reading experience.
American Aaron McCloud returns to Ireland to visit his aunt and to suffer. He plans to walk the beach and wallow in self-pity. He is rebounding from an non-love affair. Two years after his wife left him, Aaron decides that one of his creative writing students should fall in love with him. He selects Phila Rambeaux for this honor. She is unattractive, nondescript, has frizzy hair and should be a pushover for his attentions. However, Phila will not be pushed over. Her lack of interest causes Aaron to return to Ireland in a self-pitying attempt to recover from his non-love affair.
As he travels to his Aunt Kitty’s house and ruminates about his lost non-love, his bus is stopped by a herd of pigs, crowding the road. They have escaped their truck, which is stuck in the mud. To impress their attractive swineherd Lolly McKeever with his gallantry, Aaron leaves the bus to chase a pig over a hill. Upon returning with the pig following him, he discovers both the bus and Molly gone. The pig and Aaron walk through the night to Aunt Kitty’s house.
Aunt Kitty is a writer whose books correct classic novels by offering happier, improved alternatives. She is currently rewriting “Jane Eyre”. While Aaron has come to wallow in self-pity, the pig wallows in Aunt Kitty’s vegetable garden where it unearths the skeletal remains of the missing Declan Tovey. Aunt Kitty ignores Aaron’s pleas to call the police and cleans the skeleton, displaying it in the priest’s room of her house.
Aunt Kitty accuses Lolly McKeever of the murder. Lolly won’t even admit that the pig is hers, much less that she murdered Declan Tovey. She blames Kieran Sweeney whose family is an ancient enemy of the McClouds. Aaron, who is by now smitten with Lolly, thinks his Aunt may be guilty. But no one, except Aaron, wants to involve the police. This is the basic plot.
Some of the humor is demonstrated by the following conversation between Lolly and Kitty as she comes to pick up her pig.
Aaron calls out, “’Aren’t you going to ask her about—you know—what’s his name. Tovey? Declan Tovey?’…’I mean,‘—Aaron continued—‘well, you know what I mean.’
“Lolly turned toward Kitty. ‘What does he mean?’
“’He means Declan,’ Kitty said. ‘Have you seen him lately?’
“Her voice was airy, a pretense of nonchalance, a sure sign to Lolly that she was mocking the true gravity of her question.
“’Declan Tovey? No. Why would I see him?’ She started again toward the truck.
“’No, reason. Except I—I came across him just this morning.’
“Lolly stopped. ‘Oh?’ She hesitated, then asked. ‘And how is he these fine days?’
“’As well as can be expected.’”
This is a book that improves with the second reading. Read it once to get the story and the second time to enjoy the writing and the humor. Who did it? “The Pig Did It” by Joseph Caldwell is part of a planned trilogy. The library also has the second book in the trilogy, “The Pig Comes to Dinner”.
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