Deliver Thy Pigs
(By Joey Hedger)
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| Author | Joey Hedger |
— WILLIAM BURTCH, CO-AUTHOR OF W.G.
“Deliver Thy Pigs features a dynamic ensemble of folks in Prairie Ridge, Illinois, who all live in the same stink of the town’s slaughterhouse. Joey Hedger plumbs the heart of each memorable character in this community, meat packer and manager alike. Based on its demographics, Illinois is called the state most representative of the country as a whole—the most American state. Here, Hedger has written the most American novel—with grief, squealing pigs, exploited workers, and small acts of resistance. The American dream is dead, but maybe we can do something about the smell.”
— ZACHARY KOCANDA
“To read Deliver Thy Pigs is to witness a miracle on the page. Satiric and heartfelt, epic and intimate—we now have an answer to the question: 'what would happen if Upton Sinclair and Joy Williams teamed up to write The Great Midwestern Novel?' This brilliantly funny novel attempts (and succeeds) at journeying into the bruised, searching heart of the good old American factory town and, as a result, the American dream. Through the eccentric denizens of Prairie Ridge, Illinois, a mirror is held up to our lives, our strange modern ways—the way we consume, the way we grieve, the way we search for meaning, the way we find beauty where we can.”
— DAVID BYRON QUEEN, FOUNDER / PUBLISHER 'WORD WEST PRESS'
It’s been a year since defiant vandal Marco Polo Woodridge lost his father in a gruesome factory accident at J. Lowell’s Meat Factory, the noxious Midwestern pork giant that employs the majority of Prairie Ridge, Illinois’s residents. Despite the smell of death in the air—both from the lingering memory of Charles Woodridge and the thousands of pigs slaughtered daily at J. Lowell’s—the people of Prairie Ridge live in a state of regretful acceptance of the company’s hold on the community. That is, until Marco Polo teams up with Susan and Margaret Banks, the mother-daughter duo committed to restoring Illinois’s native tree population and sticking it to the man all the while.
Deliver Thy Pigs follows Marco Polo as he navigates an unwavering desire for revenge, his responsibility to the town, and his distaste for the self-pitying and overwhelmed J. Lowell’s manager, Dave Hughes. As Marco Polo, Susan, and Margaret exercise escalating acts of protest against the factory, the novel explores themes of community, loss, revenge, and connection to nature. With grit, humor, and Midwestern charm, Pigs examines what happens when you bite the hand that feeds, and what happens when that hand is the very one destroying you.”
