It’s on their latest visit to her father’s that a confrontation between Jeff and Pearl results in bloodshed, with Jeff screaming that Pearl made him do it. At least she has two lovely sons-even if the younger one, Jeff, seems to share the same antipathy she does for Pearl and the other pigs on the farm. It’s a long time before she comes back, married with two children and not a lot of money, and soon not even married. But as the years pass and her dad continues to raise the pig instead of bringing Pearl to slaughter, Sherry finds herself first asking for a stand of trees to be planted between the pigpen and her bedroom window, then leaving home as soon as possible to travel the world. Before Pearl’s arrival, the farmer’s daughter, Sherry, had dreamed of taking over the family business. The townsfolk of nearby Chowder drive past as quickly as possible, though none can say exactly why. Raised on the Kopple’s working farm, Pearl’s presence is a constant cloud over the area. Or “he” and “his,” I should say, as Pearl is no mere animal. What if, Josh Malerman seems to ask here in Pearl, we brought that spectrum of fictional porcine behavior over to its inevitable conclusion, with a pig whose intelligence turns to malevolence and worse as it realizes what humanity does to its kind. Sometimes, as in George Orwell’s famous allegory of a utopia gone awry, a pig’s intelligence and manner become indistinguishable from that of a human. Pop culture is rife with tales of adorable pigs developing a close rapport with their owners, displaying almost human intelligence, as shown by pigs such as Babe or Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web. Pearl by Josh Malerman is the legend of a strange new monster, unlike any other in horror-a sentient, talking pig that brings death and destruction to those it encounters.

Josh malerman