At the moment, the Pig Palace stands empty. People ask, “Will you get another pig?” This I don’t know. But one thing I know for sure: a great soul can appear among us at any time, in the form of any creature. I’m keeping my eyes open.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many of the people and animals who helped me with this book appear in these pages, where I hope my gratitude is evident. A number of others are not mentioned by name, even though their kindness to us and to our pig mattered deeply, and in many cases their recollections importantly informed these pages. These good souls are too numerous to name, but nonetheless I wish to thank them here.
Quite a number of people generously read this manuscript from its very earliest stages, offered encouragement, and made crucial suggestions. I am extremely lucky that some of my favorite writers number among those who agreed to do so: the splendid memoirist Beth Kephart; the poet Howard Nelson; my mentor, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas; the wonderful author Brenda Petersen; and my favorite writer of all time, Howard Mansfield. I am also grateful for the careful eyes and enduring friendship of Selinda Chiquoine, Joel Glick, Rob Matz, and Gretchen Vogel. My literary agent, Sarah Jane Freymann, has been a close friend of mine for many years and, of course, knew Christopher as well. Her advice and encouragement on this project were, as always, essential. I am grateful to my fine editor at Random House, Susanna Porter, who knows the joys of the animal world through her pet snails, beta, and three turtles; and to her talented assistant, Johanna Bowman, whose e-mails are often enlivened with attached pictures of mandrills, red river hogs, or tree kangaroos.
Finally, this book owes much to the efforts of my friend and literary assistant, Kate Cabot. As this project began, she helped me conduct and transcribe a number of interviews. She interviewed Howard for this book, and also compiled archival research for me as part of an independent study project for Prescott College. It is she who titled this book. Thanks to Kate’s excellent work, detailed recollections, and soothing presence here in the painful weeks after our pig’s death, my heart was opened once again to Christopher’s joyous spirit.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR SY MONTGOMERY is a naturalist, author, documentary script-writer, and radio commentator who writes for children as well as adults. Among her award-winning books are Journey of the Pink Dolphins, Spell of the Tiger, and Search for the Golden Moon Bear. She has made four trips to Peru and Brazil to study the pink dolphins of the Amazon. On other expeditions she has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire, bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica, undressed by an orangutan in Borneo, and hunted by a tiger in India. She has also worked in a pit crawling with eighteen thousand snakes in Manitoba, handled a wild tarantula in French Guiana, and swum with piranhas, electric eels, and dolphins in the Amazon. She lives in New Hampshire.
ALSO BY SY MONTGOMERY
FOR ADULTS
Search for the Golden Moon Bear
Journey of the Pink Dolphins
The Wild Out Your Window
Spell of the Tiger
Seasons of the Wild
The Curious Naturalist:
Nature’s Everyday Mysteries
Walking with the Great Apes
FOR CHILDREN
Search for the Golden Moon Bear: Science and Adventure in the Asian Tropics
The Tarantula Scientist
Encantado
The Man-Eating Tigers of Sundarbans
The Snake Scientist
Copyright © 2006 by Sy Montgomery
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Montgomery, Sy.
The good good pig: the extraordinary life of Christopher Hogwood / Sy Montgomery.p. cm.
1. Swine as pets—New Hampshire—Anecdotes. 2. Montgomery, Sy. 3. Pet owners—New Hampshire—Biography. 4. Human-animal relationships—New Hampshire—Anecdotes. I. Title.
SF395.6.M66 2006
636.4’0887—dc22 2005057094
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
www.ballantinebooks.com
246897531
Book design by Susan Turner
eISBN: 978-0-345-49381-1
v3.0
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