Book review: Reader leaves dinner table unsated

A major flaw in the central conceit of the Lottie Hazell's 'Piglet' completely undermines what is a well-written debut

Author Lottie Hazell decides not to reveal the major plot point of ‘Piglet’, which will leave some readers with unresolved feeling and dissatisfaction with narrative. Picture: Siobhan Calder

• Piglet 
• Lottie Hazell 
• Doubleday,  €17.50

This tale of a woman whose life falls apart when her fiancé reveals a devastating secret weeks before their wedding has popped up on many of this year’s recommended novel lists, so I was greatly looking forward to it.

Unfortunately, a major flaw in the central conceit of the book completely undermines what is a well-written debut.

Piglet is the childhood nickname given to the central character, a cookery book editor whose desperately aspirational tendencies make her hard to like. In millennial and Gen Z parlance, food is Piglet’s ‘love language’. 

Her entire life is filtered through food and cooking — there is her job, how she uses cooking as a means of seeking validation, and to assuage her anxiety; there is also an implied eating disorder.

Piglet also uses food to flag the supposed inadequacies of her working-class origins in the Midlands, where her mother’s roast chicken is, shock horror, accompanied by gravy made from granules and desert is a mint Viennetta consumed in front of the telly.

There are no such issues in her fiancé’s upper middle-class family — not only are his parents helping to pay for the couple’s new house, but the roast rib of beef is served with cavolo nero and art is discussed at the dinner table.

Piglet invests a great deal in her friendships, particularly with best friend Margot, who is expecting a baby with her partner Sasha, although Piglet feels threatened by Margot’s growing family.

At work, things start to look up when she is encouraged to go for a promotion. 

And then there is her seemingly perfect fiancé Kit who is handsome, does his fair share of the housework, and also puts up with Piglet’s seemingly endless insecurities.

But everything changes utterly when, early on in the book, Kit reveals a secret that leaves Piglet reeling and questioning her whole life. 

This secret drives the entire plot of the book — and though it may be a spoiler, it is my duty as a reviewer to reveal that we never actually find out what this secret actually is.

This results in one of the most dissatisfying conclusions I have experienced in many years of reading and one which retrospectively coloured my view of the book.

Some may argue that Hazell has made a bold choice in withholding a major plot resolution from the reader, that a book should not be judged on what is, after all, the author’s prerogative, to fashion a narrative as they see fit.

Others, me included, would make the point that when a writer relies on a particular plot point to ramp up the tension and keep you turning the pages, they enter into an unacknowledged contract with the reader to reveal what that plot point actually is. 

There are particular types of books where withholding such information from a reader works and certain writers who could pull off such a risky move but Hazell is not one of them.

There are interesting themes to be teased out in this book — class, friendship, the distinctly modern obsession with food, the social media-driven pressure to present one’s perfect self to the world — but ultimately Hazell struggles to weave them together in a coherent way.

Hazell has a masters in creative writing so there is no doubt she can write, but her academic background could be the reason that the narrative can appear overworked and effortful. 

Ultimately though what overshadows the entire enterprise is the unpleasant feeling that the reader has been cheated.