PIG CANDY
~ Essence
“A candid and moving memoir of a daughter’s deep love for her father both when he is most difficult to love and impossible not to.”
~ Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I’m Dying
“Perfectly plotted and well-paced, Pig Candy will appeal to a broad range of readers, from fans of Wendell Berry to those of Toni Morrison.”
~ Kirkus Reviews
Read an Excerpt
Many people wonder what the term “pig candy” signifies – both in a literal sense and as the title choice for this book. Here’s an excerpt from the book’s opening that begins to explain what was to Lise an irresistible paradox.
click here to read an excerpt from Pig Candy
The source of Pig Candy’s title.
Reader’s Guide
click here to download the Pig Candy Reader’s Guide
Pickled Peaches: the Howards’ recipe
You’ve read the book; now you want to eat the pickled peaches. But if you don’t live near a Piggly Wiggly and you can’t wait for the peaches to come in the mail (from a source such as The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalog), here’s a recipe from Mary Howard, Albert and Elbert’s older sister.
Freedom Ride
In the summer of 2006, my sisters and I agreed to take our father from Philadelphia to his rural Georgia hometown one last time. It was all he wanted, all he asked for. Prostate cancer had metastasized to his bones, and after two years of fighting its progression, even his will of steel could not gird him against the marauding disease. This trip signaled an impending loss too enormous and too close to imagine, but somehow we managed to squeeze plenty of light into the shadows. Here’s a photo album and video from that week. -Lise Funderburg
Photo Album
The Flash Player and a browser with Javascript support are needed..
Press the play button to advance automatically through of the slide show. (if you can’t see it, rollover the image with your cursor.)
Press the arrows on the left and right of the image to advance through the album at your own pace.
To remove the arrows and the play/pause button, double click the image and keep your cursor still. They will return once you move your cursor.
(latest Flash player required)
Video: 1:42 Minutes of the Freedom Ride
More Praise for Pig Candy
To read an exceptionally thoughtful review from a blog called Any Good Books/Mixed Reviews, click here.
“If you’re after a memoir pure and simple—a life exposed with intelligence and feeling—you could hardly do better than Pig Candy, in which Lise Funderburg takes us down to Monticello, Ga. (pop. 2,500), the place her father, a light-skinned black man, had escaped from, the place he came back to in his prosperous late middle age. The story is built around her father’s attachment to his 126-acre farm — an attachment that grows stronger even as metastasized prostate cancer weakens him. Pig Candy—the title refers to barbecued pork—wears its somber themes lightly. Yes, it’s about mortality, race and filial duty, but Ms. Funderburg never lectures, never preaches, never prettifies. She unspools her story with quiet candor and an unpretentious faith in the significance of what she has to say.”
~ Adam Begley, The New York Observer
“With Pig Candy, Lise Funderburg has achieved something very remarkable in contemporary memoir: a personal narrative that is crisply intelligent rather than cleverly self-satisfied, deeply and meaningfully emotional rather than soppily sentimental. Even better, she has used her considerable powers — of private observation, of social empathy, and of historical imagination — to transform an already gripping personal narrative into an overwhelming parable about race, family, and mortality. A wonderful book.”
~ Daniel Mendelsohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
“It’s like King Lear, but with barbecue.”
~ Lisa Kogan
“What a story, a story for our time, as a culture we begin to wrestle with how to handle death, and as a generation with some wealth and leisure and sensitivity, we try to figure out how to handle our parents’ deaths — in anticipation of our own, and how we would want that handled.”
~ Stephen P. Crosby
“What a wonderful book! Thanks so much for sharing. This is the most integrated piece of literature I have ever read! It gives me hope. Thanks also for the photos of the Freedom Ride. There just weren’t enough!”
~ Geraldine, South Carolina
“I have personally recommended your book to at least ten people.”
~ Pat McNees, author of DYING: A Book of Comfort
“What a wonderful book, and on so many levels….Insightful, moving, funny and at once, a study in what it means to be alive and what it’s like to die. A delicate balancing act. I loved it.”
~ Sarah Kelly
“I purchased your book Pig Candy on May 26 for my mother and she read it with the quickness. She really enjoyed it.”
~ Veta Bacon
“Your book, Pig Candy, is wonderful. It brought both tears and laughter while I was reading it. My mother died from cancer also.
“I do live in Monticello, Georgia. I am a transplant. My dad moved us to Monticello when I was 14 years old to set up a law practice. He was tired of Atlanta. I moved back to Atlanta when I finished High School. After I retired from AT&T I moved back home to Monticello.
“I did meet your dad and would run into him periodically. He was always totally charming when I was around him. Thank you for sharing your pain and laughter with all of us.”
~ Mary Anne Silvis, Monticello, Georgia
“I just finished your book coming home on the train. Funny that it took reading your words to help me define my relationship with my father. Thank you.”
~ Angela Scully
“I loved Pig Candy. It is a wonderful history and a lovely memoir. There were countless times when phrases jumped off the page either because they were such perfect descriptions or because they just tickled me.
“Your father was a complex man (to say the least) and you were an extraordinary daughter! You should be very proud of that and of this special book.
“Hank and I think we are very cool having been listed in your acknowledgments. Thank you.”
~ Mary Jo Healey
“I am in the midst of reading Pig Candy and it is riveting. (I have read your magazine writing in O, one of my favorite magazines, and elsewhere.) I will recommend your book widely.
“Your prose is perfect. And I think I am identifying: I grew up in Phila. and my father died last year…of metastasized prostate cancer (and complications) of course. I knew my way around the cafeterias at Rydal Park, Temple Hospital, Fox Chase, and Abington far too well. Not to mention the trains from NY to 30th St. including the 7:15 a.m. ‘bargain’ run.
“You nail (pages 159-160) the emotion of father loss.”
~ Marilyn Machlowitz
