When children's book author and househusband Matt Whyman realized that the youths in their cars outside his house were not eating sandwiches out of silver foil wraps but instead selling crack cocaine, he moved his large family from their cramped, three-bedroom terrace in London's East End to a place on the edge of the woods in West Sussex.
This merry memoir of family growing pains and too many pets has so many laugh-out-loud sequences it's embarrassing to read in public--like when his teenage daughters tinker with his cellphone, so that the ringtone is an oink. Whyman's harried husband routine rings true as he narrates, with fuss and fluster, trying to move the mini-pigs outdoors where they belong, keeping them out of the chicken eggs, assisting the sexy vet in castrating Butch, learning to give worming shots without passing out. Whyman proves to be a smart, kind, amiable entertainer who reveals subtle skills in his comic tale-telling. Anyone with an affinity for little four-footed friends will be thoroughly charmed.
Half the delight in this book is watching the characters come to life--helpful neighbor Tom, Whyman's teen daughters (who find him totally embarrassing), his loving wife--and collide with the complaining neighbor or the hot blonde veterinarian or the mysterious breeder of mini-pig semen, not to mention the annoyed cat on tranquilizers, the baffled dog who becomes the mini-pigs' surrogate mother, and of course, Butch and Roxi, the mini-pigs, who may be brother and sister.
The climactic scene where Whyman returns from face-painting at the fair, his face blue as a Smurf, to find himself confronting thieves busy on the house next door where his own escaped, drunken mini-pig is rooting through fermented fallen apples, is sheer comedic brilliance to top off the most good-hearted, hilarious memoir in years. --Nick DiMartino, Nick's Picks, University Book Store, Seattle