This is a very funny book about talking pigs. But it is so much more than that. Charles Ortleb has written a contemporary allegorical fable about the overlapping breakdown of the porcine and human public health systems. As African Swine Fever Virus, a deadly virus that infects pigs, is spreading in China and threatens to infect pigs in Western Europe and may even reach America, the timing of this provocative novel could not be more perfect. As fears grow that the virus might be capable of infecting humans, this book raises troubling questions about the honesty and competence of public health officials. Could the next human epidemic be lurking in pigs? Has a pig virus already quietly infected us and is it responsible for mysterious illnesses like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Alzheimer's, AIDS, and autism? Charles Ortleb's novel brilliantly reveals the political and existential status of man and pig in a laugh-out-loud, mini-epic of a narrative that readers everywhere will be quoting at the water cooler. The book has so many dynamic moving parts that it reads like it is reflecting the state of our world in real time. Some will call Ortleb's novel an edgy, postmodern, meta-satire, while others will deem it a jolly good tale that opens our eyes to the situation of the human-like pigs and porcine humans in our midst. In the upside-down world of this visionary book, the pigs talk and the humans oink. The pigs are more terrified of getting cockamamie diseases from humans than the humans are of getting them from pigs. One never escapes the feeling in this zany tale Ortleb has strategically nailed something utterly monstrous that will one day bite us all on the ass, if it hasn't already. This provocative and hilarious book is as wild and crazy as a fox. A literary and philosophical torch has been passed from Orwell to Ortleb. The world has a new classic. Charles Ortleb was the first publisher and editor-in-chief to provide the world with extensive coverage of AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome at a time when most of the media was looking the other way. He is the author of several books that have provided the world with the definitive history of the AIDS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome epidemic.
