Friday Book Review: Patricia Catto’s Aunt Pig of Puglia

It takes a strong stomach to withstand the introduction of the first character in Patricia Catto‘s Aunt Pig of Puglia (published last year through Kansas City writer Debra DiBlasi‘s Jaded Ibis Productions). The titular aunt, born in the Italian-boot-heel village of Casamassima, arrives in the world “with boar bristles running up and down her infant spine” and looking “more four footed, more like a little pig with pink trotters than a human girl with hands, toes, etc.”

Naturally, “Everyone was upset.” Relatives and townspeople react to Aunt Pig’s deformities with various judgments, theories, curiosities and maltreatments. Soon enough, though, we’re mercifully beyond Aunt Pig (who dies young) and swept up in the opinionated and hyper-sensual world of Casamassima — “a very small village … designed with nosy people in mind” — and the lives of characters who are much more engaging than Aunt Pig.

Catto teaches creative writing at the Kansas City Art Institute, where, according to her bio, “Her courses in folk literature of the world are her signature courses and reveal a deep interest in the archetypal forms and soul motifs of our species.” Catto has described Aunt Pig of Puglia as a “magical realism novel.” Its characters are the extended family members of a female narrator known as Pasquale — and they do feel like archetypal forms steeped in soul motifs.