Swine Not: A Novel Pig Tale - By Jimmy Buffett & Helen Bransford
Copyright © 2008 by Jimmy Buffett
Illustrations © 2008 by Helen Bransford
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group USA
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com
First eBook Edition: May 2008
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Special thanks to Nina, Lynda Lou, Amy, Sunshine, Karen, Kathy, and Bonniet for shepherding me along through the whole pig-tale adventure. I couldn’t have done it without you. — J. B.
Photograph on page xiii by Benjamin Mendlowitz
Photograph on page xxi by Pamela Jones Photography
Photograph on page 16 by Julie Skarratt
ISBN: 978-0-316-03231-5
Contents
About This Book
Apology to the Author
Chapter 1: Don’t Look Down
Chapter 2: Coach Mom
Chapter 3: Learning to Play the Angles
Chapter 4: Raising Humans Is Hard
Chapter 5: Instant Replay
Chapter 6: Men Are Not Pigs
Chapter 7: Down on the Farm
Chapter 8: Ghosts in the Trees
Chapter 9: Uprooted Like Truffles
Chapter 10: Start Spreading the News
Chapter 11: Family Week
Chapter 12: Movin’ on Up
Chapter 13: The Meat Thing
Chapter 14: A Poetic Pig
Chapter 15: Welcome to New York
Chapter 16: Warning Signs
Chapter 17: Traveling at the Speed of Dreams
Chapter 18: More Soccer than a Boy Could Want
Chapter 19: Not So Fast There, Rumpy
Chapter 20: An Unwanted Exotic
Chapter 21: Double-O Pig
Chapter 22: My Four-Star Prison
Chapter 23: Road Trip
Chapter 24: No Whining
Chapter 25: The Table Begins to Turn—What New Dog?
Chapter 26: That’s What Moms Are For
Chapter 27: A Pig in Sheepdog’s Clothing
Chapter 28: Cabin Fever in a Fish Tank
Chapter 29: A Prisoner of Plumbing
Chapter 30: There’s a Diva in the House
Chapter 31: A Roomful of Room Service
Chapter 32: A Pilot to the Rescue
Chapter 33: Something to Fit the Occasion
Chapter 34: A Stitch in Time
Chapter 35: Let Them Eat Pizza
Chapter 36: Blood Is Thicker than Cotton Candy
Chapter 37: Halloween Comes Early in New York
Chapter 38: I’m Not a Sausage—I’m an Animal
Chapter 39: Just Dessert
Chapter 40: Anteater on the Loose
Chapter 41: It’s Not the Avon Lady Calling
Chapter 42: Follow Those Pigeons
Chapter 43: An Unexpected Order
Chapter 44: Icing on the Cake
Chapter 45: A Taste of Show Business
Chapter 46: Pig Out
Chapter 47: Always a Madridista
About the Author
About the Illustrator
ALSO BY JIMMY BUFFETT
A Salty Piece of Land
A Pirate Looks at Fifty
Where Is Joe Merchant?
Tales from Margaritaville
(AND FOR YOUNG READERS)
The Jolly Mon
Trouble Dolls
FOR JANE BUFFETT, WHO KNOWS HOW TO PUT PEOPLE AND PIGS TOGETHER IN THE SAME PEN
Always remember,
a cat looks down on a man,
a dog looks up to a man,
but a pig will look a man
straight in the eye and see his equal.
— WINSTON CHURCHILL
About This Book
SOMETIMES YOU have to find the story, and sometimes the story finds you. In all my previous fiction, the stories were rooted in this nomad life I live. I converted my real-life experiences into fictional fun and made up a few more tales myself — always keeping a bit of mystery as to what was based on reality and what had sprung from my imagination. Faulkner said he was a liar by profession, and he made good money at it. However, in the case of Swine Not?, the story came to me.
One day our friend Helen Bransford brought over a manuscript she had written and some illustrations that went with it. She asked me to look at them. I knew the basic story, and everyone who knew Helen did, too. Her real-life story was this: Former Belle Meade debutante from Nashville, Tennessee, winds up marrying well-known author and moves into the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan with her husband, twin kids, cats, and large pet pig — which she conceals from the management for two years. I had joined the chorus of Helen’s friends who had told her, “You have to write this stuff down.” When you’re a fiction writer, you sometimes simply can’t top the facts.
It is a unique and magical thing to read an original story for the first time, especially when what you are reading is good and, in my case, makes me laugh out loud. Those original twenty-five pages of text and the accompanying illustrations hooked me. The idea of a mom and two kids hiding a pig in a four-star hotel suite on the Upper East Side of Manhattan got me thinking. When I finished reading Helen’s story, I walked from the office to my