Book 1/The Pig: Summer of 1977
A film maker named Leonard takes a loan from Paul Vinchetti - district boss for the mob - that he ends up not being able to pay back. Rather than kill him as they normally would, it is decided Leonard will work off his debt to the mob, shooting their porno movies for one year. He will stay at the extremely isolated Vinchetti house with two of the "actresses," nothing more than skinny, strung-out girls no longer even worthy of being paid for prostitution.
Leonard has witnessed a lot in the 10 months he's been filming for the mob: beastiality, snuff films, gang bangs, rape, necrophilia, extreme torture, scat and everything else in between, even being forced to participate at times. Shocking, sometimes, nauseating, always - but honestly, fairly routine at this point. Until the night the men bring the pig.
The movie, while foul as always, pretty much goes to plan. Afterward however, Leonard hears the two girls yelling for him. He runs to their room and sees them beating the pig to death for eating their heroin. Right in the middle of trying to dispose of the corpse, there is a knock at the door. It is a girl from the Ephiphanite compound down the road - the only neighbors for hours. She invites herself in, saying she had to get away because her grandfather is freaking out because "the pig got away."
She tells Leonard the pig is part of their Penitence Festival, which can't officially end without it. When she leaves, he gets the idea to butcher and eat the pig - since they are so hungry. In the morning, he wakes the girls up, expecting gratitude, but all they want is drugs. Something inside Leonard snaps and seeing red, he proceeds to brutally beat the two drug-addicted girls to death, tossing one corpse to the dogs out back and using the other as his personal sex doll.
He wakes sometime later, thinking it was a bad dream, until he sees the carnage all around him. He wonders what on earth came over him - where the rage and strength came from. Then he notices he's turning green...
Not knowing what else to do, he goes to look for Esther, the girl from the compund. When he finds her, he confesses his employers stole the pig, there was an accident and it died, then he ate it.
"You ate the Emblem of the Sacrifant! The Penitence Festival is a symbolic ritual. For six days we pray in silence for God to purge us of our sins and to banish those sins. We ask God to banish them into the Penitence Host, which we also call the Sacrifant. We transpose our sins into the physical body of the pig! The meat is considered unholy! It's the worldly vessel of sin! You're not supposed to eat it, you're supposed to burn it and bury it - purge it from physical existence!"
"I turned green."
"I hate to tell you this, but you haven't just turned green. You turned into a fucking demon."
Leonard then kills his bosses, gathers Esther and four other girls from the compound - all five now carrying his baby - and takes off in his bosses car to start a new life.
Book 2/The House: 2005
Melvin rents out the Vinchetti house for one week to write a story about it for the paper he works at. His father, going to be traveling for work, insists Melvin bring his brand new stepmom, Gwyneth.
It's not long at all before odd things begin to happen. Gwyneth starts to call Melvin "Leonard" and has no recollection of it immediately afterwards. Melvin hears a disembodied voice and finds things typed on his computer that he knows he didn't write. Gwyneth stands around in the yard as if in a trance. Melvin starts to have dreams about the house in '77 and sees ghosts of the dead former occupants, including Leonard. Both he and Gwyneth start sleepwalking.
Gwyneth starts digging up graves in the backyard and finds some great bones to use in her ossirial mosaics. She thinks it may even have been a pig!
Eventually, Melvin convinces Gwyneth to leave the house. When they leave, the sheriff comes by to check on the place and he finds the bone mosaic left behind in the house and thinks his wife will just love it.
Book 3/Ouija Pig: Present Day
The Paranormal Patrol - Jake, Chloe, Theo and Sarah - four friends filming a ghost adventure show decide to kick off their third season in the infamous Vinchetti house. The rental agent tells Jake about Melvin and Gwyneth, the last people to stay there. He tells him Melvin went back home and murdered Gwyneth and his father with a fire axe. Melvin was found not guilty by reason of insanity and is currently at the local mental hospital.
Almost right away, Theo hears a male voice talking to him - he tells Theo he can make all his dreams come true if he just does what he asks. First the voice demands Theo watch the sick movies filmed at the house back in '77. To his horror, he finds out he is massively turned on by the illegal porn. The more the two connect, the more real the voice becomes. Soon, Theo can see who - or what he's talking to - and it appears to be a demon. Theo is communicating with none other than Leonard himself, and he tells Theo his whole story.
It's not just Theo either; the whole group begin seeing writing on the wall, blacking out and losing their memory, seeing people in the house, having visions of former occupants. They all feel as if they're being watched.
Sarah and Theo go into town and in one of the shop windows, Sarah sees an incredible art piece made of bones she just has to have... The shop owner tells the two, the night the sheriff gave it to his wife, she slit his throat and then her own - some of their things ending up at the shop for re-sale. Theo buys the art and hangs it on the wall in the house.
Encouraged by Leonard, who wants to communicate, the group has a seance and it's not long before all hell breaks loose. At the end of the night, 3/4 of the group is dead - brutally murdered.
"He used us to kind of charge the house up with demonic energy and he did that by tricking me and you into watching those disgusting snuff flicks. Each time we did, he got more strength. He needed to stuff as much evil power as possible into that house. That was the whole plan. To corrupt God's green earth. To bring forth demon spawn."
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So, as this was three novellas, it's quite a lengthy review - it's a lot to unpack, believe me, I know. I loved all three, as I do with any Edward Lee books, short stories, novellas, etc. The one thing I'm disappointed in, is that I wanted to hear about what happened to the five mothers of Leonard's children, and the children themselves. It never came right out and said it, but Melvin from the second book was definitely one of Leonard's kids, but none of the other four were ever mentioned.