CREATURE CORNER BOOK REVIEW: PIG AND THE HOUSE, THE

Edward Lee’s The Pig & The House
Published by Necro Publications

Ed
Lee’s name is almost always spoken of in hushed tones as if it’s a
touchy subject. His books are legendary for the depths they sink to-
you can guarantee that any fan of his work has a sick, sick sense of
humor- and a stomach of steel. It’s my duty to warn you that you’re
reading the words of one of the newly converted. This book disgusted
me.. and I loved it.

This copy of The Pig & The House was given to me by a friend who immediately picked it up after hearing of its rerelease. The Pig
was originally unleashed upon the world back in 1997 during our high
school years. It uses sex as a tool to make the horror gorier and much
more nauseating than is usually considered socially acceptable. My bud
was warped by it…. he never knew that books could get that brutal.

Well, they do.

Last year Necro Publications
released Ed’s original novella along with a brand new followup story
called The House. They both work together and make for one wicked
story. Let’s see just how sick it gets…

The Pig-

"Sissy looked at the shot glass full of pig semen and threw it back neat."

(Yes,
that is the first line of the novella, and it only gets worse from
there. If the idea of ingesting pig ejaculate is too much from you,
stay far away from this because you’re about to be introduced to facets
of bestiality you’d never want to know. )

Leonard
is a poor, scrawny geek whose only passion in life is film. He wants to
make them so bad that he steals the equipment needed to make them and
is promptly caught and jailed. During his months in the slammer he is
violated in all kinds of ways and becomes pretty good at oral sex, to
boot. He keeps his mind on his film and soon escapes the horrors of
jail… only ending up on a path that leaves him off even worse.

Stealing
the film equipment once again after his release, Leonard films his
masterpiece in a stunning 2 days and sends it off to Sundance, thanks
to a budget supplied by a local mafia loan shark. Unfortunately for our
hero, when the mob goons come to collect on his payment he doesn’t have
it. Instead of killing him they slice off one of his balls and bring
him to a remote house upstate where he’s going to pay them off over the
next year. They need a new director for their films, you see, and
thankfully there’s a lot of material for pornos there, including two
heroin-addicted women and all manner of animals.

As
sick as the story is (and be glad I’m not getting into specifics) it’s
also very funny. The things that happen to Leonard are disgusting and
hysterical at the same time- mostly because he’s such an innocent,
naive kid. I’m no pro at dog sex, mind you, but when he’s given the job
of getting 3 wet shots in his film and needs an explanation… well,
it’s just priceless. The story gets progressively weirder and sicker
until it ends in a supernatural bloodbath which astounds even the
mafia.

The House-

This
is a followup story to Pig, starting off as a writer heads to a
supposedly haunted house upstate to write an article for his paper.
Yep, it’s the same one from the first story- 30 years later- but a lot
has been left behind. The events of the first one have turned into an
urban legend of sorts, but it’s obvious that the house still has some
strange things going on in it. Melvin (the writer) is a 33 year old
virgin, living off of his rich father, who pays for him to take this
trip with his stepmom. His stepmom’s closer to his age than his
father’s, and is one hot mama.

It’s
not spoiling anything to say that they are affected by the crazy things
that happened here long ago, and both are coerced into things they
never thought they’d do- including running a train for a group of
bikers, hooking up with dirty crack whores, and other nice things.

House
is just as funny as Pig, but not as tight a story. Perhaps if I’d read
it 8 years after its original release I might’ve appreciated it more,
but experiencing it as the second part of this book does make it seem a
little repetitive at parts. That’s not to say it doesn’t read well- it
does, it’s just that since the original story was just told to you, you
know what’s going on. It might’ve actually worked better if House was
placed first in the book- that way you figure out what happened in the
house later on in Pig… creating a little bit of mystery.

The
book’s a very quick read as his prose is familiar- deceptively simple
in fact. Deceptive because it’s obvious that it’s all very well thought
out. Ed knows how to push buttons, and has no problems hitting all of
them at once and watching what happens. You get almost desensitized to
it by the end, because it’s just so over the top.

As
this was my introduction to the man’s work- I can’t tell you how it
stacks up to the rest of his books, but I have more on the way and
can’t wait to check them out.

8.5 out of 10