Heart Of Swine

The last swine left on Earth, Captain Grunter, is on a quest for justice.

With the support of his improbable companions, he delves into the inescapable nightmares of a late-capitalist mediascape characterised by sensationalised poverty, fetish consumerism and glamourised environmental catastrophes. Through the lies and riddles of the villains he faces, the porcine superhero begins his philosophical journey of what it means to be more-than-bacon.

Heart of Swine is likely the strangest novel you’ll read for some time – until the other two books in this trilogy arrive, at least. Rushing by like a late-night conversation very much under the influence, the subject matter comes thick and fast: climate change, exploitation, existentialism, dick jokes, the media, veganism and how tasty bacon is. It’s a theatrical rush of arch dialogue telling the story of a very familiar world, gone wrong for very familiar reasons but with psychedelically outlandish results.

This cartoon alternative reality begins in the early 21st century when Russia decided to turn off the gas supplies to Western Europe. Freezing in our homes, it was decided that climate change was actually going to save us, if only it could be accelerated. So – following the blackly comic logic that underpins the book – the most expedient way to do so was massively increase our meat consumption, as we all know that farming animals increases greenhouse gas emissions. So frenetic was the Bacon Wave that we managed to eat all the pigs. Except one. And he had superpowers, along with an unresolved issue or two...