Pig Boy's Wicked Bird: A Memoir | 
 enlarge | Author: Doug Crandell
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
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Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 901345
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.7 x 1
ISBN: 1556525524
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.603
EAN: 9781556525520
ASIN: 1556525524
Publication Date: September 1, 2004
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Product Description
This gritty tragicomic memoir is set in one memorable year1976, the Bicentennial, when Jimmy Carter ran for president and seven-year-old Doug Crandell lost two fingers in a farming accident. More than anything, Doug wants to shed his nickname, Pig Boy, and grow up to be a hog man like his father. His older brother Derrick reads pulp novels to him each night as he soaks his remaining fingers in Epsom salts. His brothers urge him to "flip the Wicked Bird" any time another child makes fun of his "lobster-red hand." Doug shares his summer of healing in Wabash, Indiana, with humans and animals whove suffered life-changing traumas: a brutal grandfather gentled by stroke, a deaf dog with a deadly taste for pigs ears, a tough-love mother coping with depression, a bevy of runt piglets saved from extermination. This is a story of love, loss, healing, and a familys relation with the land they love and know that they will lose.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
A thought provoking memoir September 28, 2008
Doug Crandell has written a poignant memoir that cannot fail to touch your heart and mind. Doug must have been a complete mystery to his family as a child. He was so sensitive, so intelligent, and so different from the rest of the family. The unconditional love and acceptance from all in the Crandell family shine as a steady beacon in his well written book. I became so caught up in the family story, and Doug's individual story, that I was almost holding my breath hoping that all would turn out for the best.
Mr. Crandell's memoir made me want to hold a piglet too- preferably a runt! I learned a lot about pig farming on a small farm from his story. I don't think I'll ever want to eat a ham sandwich again! His descriptive powers were so great that I could almost see the piglets long eyelashes and hear their contented breaths in the little pen.
I do wish that I knew if Doug was ever able to use his hand in any way. I kept thinking, "if only you could have seen a hand surgeon when this happened". But alas, there was never enough money and everyone did the very best they could without a lot of medical help, or really any kind of outside help.
You will love this book.
Humorous and Poignant.........a must read!! April 5, 2007
I grew up in neighboring Illinois not far from `Pig Boy'. So, in reading this lovely memoir I found myself transported back into my own childhood memories of growing up. I was tired of reading at the time and therefore hesitant to give this memoir a chance. When I finished, I found that the author had reignited my passion for reading. This memoir will make you want to read again...to write again. The author truly captured the very humorous and.... yes poignant business of growing up, families and the unique value that every person brings to this world. Get this book, you will be glad you did.
The Three D's May 31, 2005
First of all, I really enjoyed this book. I was skeptical going in, thinking it was just another outbreak in the rash of memoirs that has erupted on the best seller lists. This one is different. On the surface, it's a coming of age story, a story about self worth, self awareness, and the impact of family (the family in question being "the seven D's" - all of Doug Crandell's brothers, sisters, and even his parents have names that start with D.) But it turns out that what the story is really about is the three D's: disability, disfigurement, and just being different.
Two of the author's fingers are essentially severed in a childhood farming accident, leaving the boy disabled, disfigured and different. This leads to an awareness and an appreciation of those three D's -- that turn out to be everywhere in young Crandell's world: his mother who is "no longer a woman" due to a hysterectomy, a man with cerebral palsy who connects with the author, the runt pigs destined to be destroyed but saved by Crandell, a grandmother with a humped back, a sister with scoliosis, even the oldest brother is left changed by a never fully explained abduction reminiscent of Mystic River. (Most everyone in the book is marked in some critical, defining, and not always obvious way. Some, like the landlord's son, are, to quote John Lennon, crippled inside.)
Sherwood Anderson and his collection of grotesqueries, Winesburg, Ohio is the influence pointed out by Doug Crandell for helping him sort out his confused world of being marked different as well as leading him on the path to becoming a writer. What I noticed were the influences of William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and in particular Carson McCullers. For a story of the Midwest, Pig Boy's Wicked Bird has a distinct Southern Gothic feel. (One person's physical characteristics are described as "crooked," "twisted," and "warped" in the space of a single paragraph). Like The Member of the Wedding, or even Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms, these disabled, disfigured, and different people will live with you forever.
Peculiar Power and Distinct Nostalgia October 16, 2004
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
There is a distinct nostalgia in Pig Boy's Wicked Bird. The peculiar power in this depiction of an American family is relevant to anytime, place, or condition. The author uses beautiful language and rhythmical sentences to creat a compact telling of this humorous and poignant memoir. The business of living can be lonely. The reader can make profitable use of the insights illuminated throughout this story.
Indiana Wants Me, But I Can't Go Back There October 15, 2004
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Doug Crandall, former little Pig Boy of the Heartland, brings us a heart-rendering, oftentimes snorting food-out-the-nose-from-laughing memoir of friendship with farm animals and dealing with life's tragedys. Poetically written by the now grown up Mr. Crandall, even city girls like me can appreciate his love of family, roots and Jimmy Carter. If you love crusty old men, goofy dogs and little piglets, you'll love this story as I did.
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