It seems that a good story will not lie down; and there are not that many around. After The Pigman, The Pigman's Legacy (followed, I suppose by The Pigman's Return), several titles and 11 years later, Paul Zindel picks up John and Lorraine. He finds them almost as fresh and eccentric as they were just before the Pigman died….

[The Pigman's Legacy has] a much simpler plot. All the old man does is die; and all the children do is make his final days a little easier. The cycle of birth, infatuation and death is heavily scored in the final chapters. But if the moral tone is just a little more sententious, the hijinks more hollow and the Overwhelming Question a lot more overwhelming, The Pigman's Legacy emerges as a serious sequel rather than a souped up rerun of a book that launched a thousand imitations.