Robert Newton Peck

Start Free Trial

Pamela Marsh

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Inside almost every American and quite a few Europeans there's a farm lad trying to get out. The young dream of a machine-free life and organic bread, their elders of traditional American values and home-cooked pie. Robert Peck is writing for them all [in "A Day No Pigs Would Die"]….

In showing just how earthy farm life is and how stoic a farmer and his children must be Mr. Peck spares us nothing. Vivid animal mating scenes, butcherings, a cruel economy that forces a boy to help slaughter his beloved pet pig and his father to insist that he does—we get the lot, along with delightful rural scenes and picturesque turns of speech….

I found it sometimes sickening, often entrancing. But there were also too many times when I could feel the author digging me in the ribs, self-consciously demanding my tears or my laughter.

Pamela Marsh, "What's New and Popular on the Bookshelf: 'A Day No Pigs Would Die'," in The Christian Science Monitor (reprinted by permission from The Christian Science Monitor; © 1973 The Christian Science Publishing Society; all rights reserved), January 17, 1973, p. 11.

See eNotes Ad-Free

Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts.

Get 48 Hours Free Access
Previous

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

Next

Richard Todd