This is an imaginative little tale about a pig secretly living in a hotel in New York City. The story is told using first-person narrative, alternating between Barley, a young boy, and his soccer-playing pot-bellied pig Rumpy. The rest of the cast includes Barley’s twin sister and his eccentric mother. The group finds themselves living in the big apple in a hotel whose rules change to not allow pets. So, they do what any other family would do: they disguise the pig as a dog and go on with their lives. Fashion designers, famous athletes, top-flight chefs, and of course, the mayor all figure in to the story, which builds to a ridiculous but highly entertaining conclusion. Unlike Buffet’s other works this is really more of a kid’s fairy tale than an adult novel, but still a lot of fun.
I think there comes a time in everyone’s life when the werewolf-like winds of misdirection and the beasts of bad timing put us in an impossible situation.
