I picked up Piglet by Lottie Hazell after seeing it chosen as the read for a lot of online book clubs. Also, I was intrigued by the cover image / title combination. I opened it on a sunny afternoon last week and gobbled it all up. The lovely, descriptive prose and intriguing lead character, known to her family as Piglet (for reasons that are explained), held my interest until the last page.
Opening sentence: Piglet was sweating and the supermarket chill was welcome on her breastbone.
The class divide
Piglet is from a working-class family in Derby but has married (well, almost – back to that in a minute) up, into middle/upper class Kit’s family. They live in Oxford and have money. She was brought up on sausage and mash but feels she is more of a foie gras person. I use the food analogy as Piglet is packed full of them, that’s what makes this a different kind of read.
Piglet works for Fork House – a food / cookbook publisher and has both a passion and very emotional relationship with food. There are a few scenes when she is working through strong emotions and links it to food, overeating of food to be exact. (Trigger warning for disordered eating.)
Also, I’ve never considered before how food is such a clever way to signal a class divide, it’s done so well in Piglet – with themes of class and aspiration being explored through the story.
She was proud, in a way, that she could still smile as the delicious life she had been savouring turned maggoty in her mouth.
The perception vs the reality
Life is going well for Piglet until, in the run up to their wedding, Kit unexpectedly makes her reality come crashing down. Her perfect life spirals and then, when she thinks she’s making the right decision, nothing seems to work out the way she wants.
We follow Piglet as she tries to deal with her new reality, not break her long friendship with best-friend Margot, and support her sister, as she has been doing since childhood. The harsh reality of how important perception of a type of life is versus real happiness is something she has to consider and work through.
Overall, I really enjoyed Piglet. The food and drink descriptions literally left me craving the meals she was describing and Piglet was a layered, complex character it was nice to get to know.
