Pearl

July 5, 2021
Bestseller Malerman (Bird Box) offers a muddy, meandering horror tale that nevertheless contains some memorably upsetting images. The residents of small town Chowder, Mich., grapple with the presence of Pearl, a telepathic pig with the ability to control the minds of humans and drive them mad with hallucinations. Among those affected are a farmer’s daughter who fights to protect her family from the pig that terrified her in her youth, a trio of stoned teenagers who explore Pearl’s farm only to uncover mind-melting horrors, and a broken businessman who must finally confront the malevolent force that has haunted him for a decade. As the bodies pile up, the townspeople’s paths converge at Pearl’s barn, where they must maintain enough sanity to defeat Pearl once and for all. The novel suffers from thin characterization and a lack of narrative momentum, and though Malerman’s exclamatory style lends itself well to the scarier moments, the story never quite manages to work its way around to coherence. This is best suited for Malerman’s die-hard fans. Agent: Kristen Nelson, Nelson Literary.

August 15, 2021
On a small Michigan farm, a freaky, mind-controlling pig named Pearl messes with people's heads--and extracts literal pounds of flesh--to avenge the cruel mistreatment of his species. Before farmer Walt Kopple acquired Pearl as a piglet, someone cruelly abused one of the animal's eyes. Walt named the pig after discovering a humanlike eye beneath an unsightly flap of skin, which was "like finding a pearl inside a dark clamshell." Walt trained Pearl, who sits like a person, "like he would a child." Through an eerie form of ESP, Pearl learned to manipulate people's thoughts and silently command other pigs. After beheading a pig in a bizarre fit of rage and insisting another pig made him do it, Jeff, the ill-fated Walt's seventh grade grandson, becomes the talk of the town, leading three of his schoolmates to go out to the farm for cheap thrills. Bad mistake. Soon enough, Jeff's brother, their anxious mother--who fled to Brazil after high school to escape her odd premonitions about Pearl--and a pair of cops become part of the mayhem. Though the wild premise of the book is initially hard to take seriously, you quickly surrender to the creepy vibe and the Bird Box (2014) author's ability to keep you guessing. In one great scene, Jeff thinks he is being slowly crushed in a small room by a monstrously expanding pig. Part twisted fairy tale, part animal rights protest, part PTSD drama, and part Triumph the Insult Dog, the novel never runs out of unsettling doors to open. A strange, un-put-down-able thriller.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from August 1, 2021
Jeff, a young boy, travels with his mother and brother to his grandfather's farm. They disperse and Jeff ends up at the pig pen. Then he grabs an axe and whacks a pig's head off and, when asked why, claims that ""Pearl made me do it!"" Pearl is the farm's longest-lived resident, an eerily anthropomorphic pig with one deformed eye, who has inexplicably remained alive while his fellow pigs were sent to slaughter. Pearl has a history of exerting strange influence over nearby people, and Jeff's shocking act of violence seems to be the latest and most gruesome example. The book is a reprint of a 2019 release, and its horror tilts toward the unusual, even the perverse, and will not be to everyone's taste. But daring readers should find this tale of a malevolent telepathic pig (Animal Farm meets Carrie, perhaps?) to be a memorable experience. Although it's very different in tone, the novel shares the same kind of racing narrative that made Bird Box (2014) hard to put down and is Malerman's most accomplished work outside of the Bird Box series. It will likely be divisive and will probably be one of the most-discussed books in horror this year.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2021
Jeff, a young boy, travels with his mother and brother to his grandfather's farm. They disperse and Jeff ends up at the pig pen. Then he grabs an axe and whacks a pig's head off and, when asked why, claims that ""Pearl made me do it!"" Pearl is the farm's longest-lived resident, an eerily anthropomorphic pig with one deformed eye, who has inexplicably remained alive while his fellow pigs were sent to slaughter. Pearl has a history of exerting strange influence over nearby people, and Jeff's shocking act of violence seems to be the latest and most gruesome example. The book is a reprint of a 2019 release, and its horror tilts toward the unusual, even the perverse, and will not be to everyone's taste. But daring readers should find this tale of a malevolent telepathic pig (Animal Farm meets Carrie, perhaps?) to be a memorable experience. Although it's very different in tone, the novel shares the same kind of racing narrative that made Bird Box (2014) hard to put down and is Malerman's most accomplished work outside of the Bird Box series. It will likely be divisive and will probably be one of the most-discussed books in horror this year.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from October 1, 2021

Malerman (Bird Box) cleverly plays with readers' minds and emotions by invoking their affection for sweet swines like Wilbur or Babe, before swiftly unleashing his pig protagonist Pearl--a fearsome, telekinetic serial killer. Originally published in 2019 as On This, the Day of the Pig, this is a perfect, fast-paced slasher filled with violent, cinematic action sequences. The frequent point-of-view switches and flashbacks expertly build up the characters, their motivations, and intriguing backstories. From the early days of the farmer's lessons to the unique and disfigured pig to his unsettling effect on the daughter as she grows, her children, and others in the community with motivations both good and evil, many voices collide under Pearl's evil, revenge-driven mind control. Yes, it is all moderately absurd, but it is also chillingly serious about issues such as responsible animal farming, humanity's negative impact on nature, and the psychology of a killer. Readers will be unsettled from the first shocking, bloody scene, and it ratchets up exponentially from there, not only because of the gore, violence, and tension caused by the monster, but also because of what the novel says about humanity. VERDICT Malerman delivers with another completely different yet equally crowd-pleasing and awesome horror novel that is not to be missed. Fans of tales as varied as Eden by Tim Lebbon, Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, or The Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones will all find something to savor and enjoy here.

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