Tag: piglet

Piglet is a novel about a woman whose wedding is approaching, as a perfect ideal of a life seems to be falling apart. Piglet—her family’s nickname for her—is due to marry Kit, whose upper middle class Oxford parents are a far cry from her own, and soon they will have a perfect life of dinner parties and domestic bliss. But when Kit reveals a secret thirteen days before their wedding, Piglet must decide what she wants to do and what she really desires.

This book opens with Waitrose, and that really is a good marker of what is to come. Piglet takes aim at ideas of domestic bliss and a middle class idea of what people should do, blending satirical ridiculousness (Piglet and Kit’s families are complete stereotypes) with extended descriptions of food. It is also very much about disordered eating and ways people unhealthily use food to cope, but in a literary way where this is not really addressed head on, as much of the book is. From the blurb, it might be difficult to tell how much this is literary fiction, about unlikeable characters and stereotypes and extended description that forces you to focus on the food, and not on the secret Kit has revealed, which is likely to make the book not for everyone.

The way Kit’s secret is handled is also probably divisive, and I couldn’t decide whilst reading it if the way the book does it (not wanting to entirely give spoilers) works best, especially as I did hope the book would get darker with the secret, breaking even further away from the conventions it is ridiculing. It does well to create a sense of horror around a lot of expected traditions, which might hit differently for people who have gone through them, and counters it with the subplot of Piglet’s best friend Margot and her wife having a baby and Margot being a very different voice to everyone else around Piglet.

Taking aim at the idea of a domestic goddess who also shouldn’t eat too much, Piglet is a bold novel that might not always satisfy, but was a compelling read. It’s harsh and exaggerated, and it really does, unfortunately, make you hungry.