The Pig Goes to Hog Heaven

Of The Pig Goes to Hog Heaven, the third and climactic entry in Joseph Caldwell's charmingly boisterous Pig Trilogy, one might well repeat the most famous words of the great non-Irish wordsmith and baseball catcher Yogi Berra, 'It ain't over till it's over.'

Kitty McCloud, the trilogy's leading lady, would let these words stand, even were she a reviser of aphorisms rather than a 'fixer' of great literary works by the likes of Bronte, Hardy, and Eliot no less, by writing 'improved' versions of which she makes an outsized bestselling living that affords her the dubious luxury of living in contentious bliss with her husband, Kieran Sweeney, in their ancient, haunted Irish Castle Kissane.

For in Mr. Caldwell's new comedy - well, tragicomedy, in the truly Irish sense - almost nothing seems to be over - disappeared characters rematerialize, romances that seemed dead burst back to ardent life, and even Taddy and Brid, Castle Kissane's comely spirits, find new meaning in Yogi's remark as they resolve themselves into much-longed-for conclusions.

And the pig, ah yes, the pig! The pig who started it all by rooting up the bones of the past and tipping many lives topsy turvy - that pig goes wee wee wee all the way - er - home.


Genre: General Fiction