What Is Time to a Pig?

Praise for What Is Time to a Pig? “John Straley is an incredible writer with a scary imagination.” —Dayton Daily News “Straley has brought together what are clearly social and political issues he cares deeply about—even as he lampoons them . . . John Straley takes us on a wild ride, but with the reins held firmly in his able hands.” —Anchorage Daily News “A big, bold, new departure . . . Straley wanders into Michael Chabon territory with a bit of alt-historical chaos, takes a detour to the edge of dystopian sci-fi, and goes right back to a realism that is more real than the grittiest of noir writing . . . a fitting book for these stranger-than-fiction times.” —Daily Sitka Sentinel “The hallucinatory narrative style matches our confused era . . . The reader willing to go along with the unconventional narration will be rewarded by sharp commentary on our times and equal parts poetry and offbeat humor.” —Reviewing the Evidence “John Straley creates a maddeningly insane but wholly convincing universe that fires powerfully on the level of plot. But What Is Time to a Pig? does much more. It manages to skillfully ask questions about the nature of reality, memory, and dreams while speculating on what may become of our addiction to incarcerating our fellow brothers and sisters. The result is the best kind of intellectual head trip.” —Sergio de la Pava, author of A Naked Singularity and Lost Empress “John Straley is a masterful storyteller, and one of America’s finest novelists. In What Is Time to a Pig? Straley captures an American society of dysfunction and a corrections system run amok, a not so distant future that we can only hope we never see. Straley delivers humor and heart with a hard punch to the gut. His quirky characters live and breathe on the page with such life and force you feel like you’re in the room with them. I can’t answer the question of What is time to pig?—but I can say the time I spent devouring Straley’s new Cold Storage novel was the best reading experience I’ve had all year.” —Don Rearden, author of the Washington Post notable novel The Raven’s Gift “This is one of those books where the writing is so dazzling the story almost doesn’t matter, but the story is wonderful too: a satirical 21st century thriller that’s both a page-turner and the frame for a much deeper contemplation. Straley’s prose is achingly perceptive, cinematically vivid and just pure pleasure to read.” —Scott Hawkins, author of The Library at Mount Char “When a master writer like John Straley comes at you with a book as funny, biting, intelligent, gritty, and propulsive as What Is Time to a Pig?, you can’t help but sit up and take notice. Upon a foundation of nuclear proliferation, the Ghost Dance movement, the history and future of Alaska, and the philosophical ramifications of individual freedom, Straley has built a narrative as absurd as anything in today's news cycle, and all told in his signature voice: warm, inviting, sharp, witty, and impossible to turn away from.” —Christian Kiefer, author of Phantoms “What Is Time to a Pig? represents a giant leap of imagination for John Straley. This is what happens when a poet writes a mystery. The sweet, the gruesome, and the macabre are rendered with hypnotic, uncommon clarity. Straley beckons and I eagerly follow him on what Emerson called ‘the stairway of surprise.’” —Alfredo Véa, author of Gods Go B