Animal Farm meets Thankskilling in Josh Malerman’s Pearl [Del Ray Books, October 12, 2021], when grisly, ghastly, gnashing terror washes the rural town of Chowder’s farmland red.
There’s something wrong about the Kopple farm. The farmer’s daughter, Sherry, knows. Her sons know. The local cops know. School kids know. Even the farmer, Walter Kopple, knows. Something is wrong about the farm. It’s the pigs. No, it’s one pig—Pearl. Pearl, with his misshapen mass and dead man’s eye. Something is wrong with Pearl.
When the piglet called Pearl first comes to Kopple’s farm, Walter quickly realises Pearl isn’t just another pig. Maybe it has something to do with what’s behind the flap of skin covering where one of his eyes should be, or perhaps it’s the curious creep of the animal’s voice in the farmer’s mind (“Sing for me”). Whatever it is, Walter finds himself unable to slaughter Pearl, unable to resist Pearl. Instead, he teaches him—language, meaning, context. But this is only the beginning, because while Walter is teaching, Pearl is learning, and soon he will be ready for his own form of instruction.
Previously published as On This, The Day of the Pig, Malerman’s Pearl is, on the surface, a terrifying examination of sentience, but the porcine panic runs deeper, bleeding into a tale of suffering and ache, of the cruelty mankind oft delivers on those deemed “lesser than,” and the bloody consequences of when those “others” rise.
Pearl is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
From the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box and Malorie Josh Malerman comes the legend of a strange new monster unlike any other in horror.
Go to the farm just outside of town and you’ll hear it.
A voice. Inside your head.
Or is it?
Come to me…
A voice that makes you want to pick up that axe over in the corner of the barn.
And swing it.
And kill.
Feed us. Feed us now.
It is the voice of Pearl.
Sing for me. Sing for your precious Pearl…
