Carlos’s Reviews > The House > Status Update

"Some authors, though, get away with it regardless."

Have you ever met one of those, Eddie?

What I find most offensive about Lee's writing isn't the sex, the violence, the copious bodily fluids, the language, the misogyny, the racism or even the sub-Christgau musings on the music that was popular in his youth. It's his use of flashbacks.

I'm really not trying to be nitpicky but we're less than 10 pages in and already getting a flashback to repeat exposition we got at the start of the story. And delivered to the same character no less! I guess our protagonist has that Memento disorder...

I will say, The Pig managed to inspire a real emotional reaction from me. Not horror, not even disgust (though I felt some of that) but anger. I find myself needing to skim over the mentions of rock bands because it's pretentious hack shit, and every time it happens, I feel an overwhelming desire to punch Edward Lee in the dick.

On a bright note, the plot has finally kicked in. Yay...

Again, I have to ask, what's the arc here? Do I care why the gross act in the first scene takes place? No. Do I care if the protagonist makes his film? No. Is it offensive? Sure, but it's 2025 and I have access to the internet. Offensive isn't an achievement. It's not horror. The one nice thing I'll say about Lee is he seems to have a good vocabulary.

I don't get "Pig." When your hook is "Would you like to know why this person did this gross thing?" and you a) already show much grosser things on the page and b) digress into a tedious 19-year-old's idea of literary horror, sure, you have a series of words, but do you actually have a story?