You could probably label me and my wife (and by extension, my son too) as flexitarians. We eat mostly a vegetarian diet, but make allowances in certain situations (for social, pragmatic, cultural, or nutritional reasons). Why are we flexitarians? Well, partly, to save money. Partly, for health reasons. Mostly, though, I (and, I would guess my wife too) eat a mostly-vegetarian diet because of (imo) the major ethical problems and environmental dilemmas associated with the production and slaughtering of meat or animal products for mass consumption, especially on the scale that we see in the United States and many other Western nations.
I mention this because I think it makes my choice of BannedBookToReviewToday more interesting. A Day No Pigs Would Die (ADNPWD), the sixteenth most challenged book of the 1990s, provides some difficult reading material, even for me, a “hardened” adult. ADNPWD was first published in 1972 and tells Robert Newton Peck’s (semi-autobiographical) tale about becoming an adult on a 1930s Vermont farm. It’s a coming of age tale, but one in which the protagonist, Robert, struggles into adulthood in an entirely different age. Jim Mulvey, in “A Defense of A Day No Pigs Would Die,” notes:
Combine the deadpan humor of Huck Finn, his realistic dialect and uncouth language, his often sad observation of human misery, and his understated accounts of poverty, sin, and death and place this narrator in a Charlotte’s Web-like world, but without its transcendent, rosy pastoralism, and you will perhaps see why Robert Newton Peck’s A Day No Pigs Would Die is a major achievement of adolescent literature and one of the most challenged novels in America’s schools.1
The Cover of Robert Newton Peck's A Day No Pigs Would Die
Chapters 11-15 provide much DifficultToDigest material, especially for the 12-year-old for whom this book is intended. This latter portion of Peck’s work guides the reader through “three increasingly horrifying accounts of animal mating and death that preface the death of Haven [Robert's father].”2 I reread chapter 14 this morning and started the fight with my tear ducts (the last thing I needed was one of my co-workers walking in to find me sobbing over the slaughter of poor Pinky) a page in when – after finding out about the failed apple crop, the failed hunt, and the coming winter – I read:
Pinky did not have the litter of pigs. She was bred and she was barren. And she ate too much to keep as a pet. Samson had mounted her twice, and there was no litter. Nothing. And little estrus. She never really come to full heat, not even once.3
But Chapter 14 also teaches us some good, quality lessons, some of which might be needed more than ever in today’s world. In a time when pig and pork have been almost entirely divorced from each other for the vast majority of Americans and factory farming aided by the injection of various growth hormones has become common practice, the humanization of the act of killing an animal for food that Peck provides us in Chapter 14 is especially important. At the same time, the Peck family’s practical need for that ham reminds those flexitarians/vegetarians/vegans/etceteratarians among us about the harsh actualities of life and death on the farm. In the story, though, the need for the inclusion of the slaughtering of Pinky (as well as the inclusion of the mating scene) obviously fulflls a much greater purpose than simply reminding vegetarians that meat consumption can be justified: this scene is essential for Rob’s “coming of age” in rural 1930s Vermont. Just after Haven and Robert gut-wrenchingly “get it done,” Peck provides the reader with a touching scene in which Robert finds the ability to forgive his dying father and let his hatred for him dissipate:
“Oh, Papa. My heart’s broke.:”
“So is mine,” said Papa. “But I’m thankful you’re a man.”
I just broke down, and papa let me cry it all out. I just sobbed and sobbed with my head up toward the sky and my eyes closed, hoping God would hear it.
“That’s what being a man is all about, boy. It’s just doing what ’s got to be done.”
I felt his big hand touch my face, and it wasn’t the hand that killed hogs. It was almost as sweet as Mama’s. His hand was rough and cold, and as I opened my eyes to look at it, I could see that his knuckles were dripping with pig blood. It was the hand that just butchered Pinky. He did it. Because he had to. Hated to and had to. And he knew that he’d never have to say to me that he was sorry. His hand against my face, trying to wipe away my tears, said it all. His cruel pig-sticking fist with its thick fingers so lightly on my cheek.
I couldn’t help it. I took his hand to my mouth and held it against my lips and kissed it. Pig blood and all. I kissed his hand again and again, with all its stink and fatty slime of dead pork. So he’d understand that I’d forgive him even if he killed me.
I was still holding his hand as he straighted up tall against the gray winter sky. He looked down at me and then he looked away. With his free arm he raked the sleeve of his work shirt across his eyes. It was the first time I ever seen him do it.
The only time.4
Jim Mulvey argues the novel’s best attributes better than I can, when he says:
Such…real emotion, as well as the book’s lessons and pastoral wisdom, and the picture of family unity and love certainly more than outweigh the problematic nitpicking of those who challenge this novel. Each of the novel’s controversies is completely justifiable given the reality of the book’s world, the strong family values of the Pecks, the admirable bond between a father and son, and the growth of Rob, who is not only an interesting and sensitive narrator, but good son. Over the course of a year Rob has learned to look outside himself, to gather the wisdom of nature, to appreciate the tender love of his parents, and to understand the kindness of his supportive Baptist neighbors.
For these reasons, A Day No Pigs Would Die is not only an appropriate novel for middle school students; it is a necessary one.5
I agree, though I know I’ll not be eating pig tonight.
1. Jim Mulvey, “A Defense of A Day No Pigs Would Die,” in Censored Books II: Critical Viewpoints, 1985-2000 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002), 152.
2. Mulvey, “A Defense,” 155.
3. Robert Newton Peck, A Day No Pigs Would Die (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 134.
4. Peck, ADNPWD, 139-40.
5. Mulvey, “A Defense,” 158.
I agree this book is deffinetly needed for the young adults today. The book A Day NO Pigs would Die has some good old fahioned family values in it. Kids and adultd these days need to remember those and get back to those values. If you really dont pay attention to the littleest details in the book, that they challenged ; it is a vey usefull book for us all.
i feel that this book is one of the greatest books out there because it shows what people went through to survive back then. for you to ban this book is wrong. we need to understand what it was like then and what we need to do in our hard times.
Hi Sarah,
Indeed, this is a great book. I’m in no way advocating that it be banned; quite the opposite, actually. In my banned books week posts I am trying to celebrate books that have been banned in various places in the past and those books that are often still banned today. From the American Library Association’s web site on Banned Books Week:
“BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them.”