Richie's Picks: MARTYN PIG by Kevin Brooks, The Chicken House, May 2002

"...You can bump off every member of your family
And anybody else you find a bore.

Because it's murder by numbers, 1, 2, 3,
It's as easy to learn as your ABC..." --The Police

The scene of the murder was on the eighteenth floor, in the editor's secluded
cubicle. Sneering and growling, "Those Brits and their bloody pound notes,"
he raised up his Sharpened red fine point and brought it down again and again
and again...until he had thoroughly Americanized the manuscript, leaving it
lying lifeless and pale upon the desk. "Even Homer Simpson can understand it
now!" he muttered to himself as he caught the elevator and headed down to the
corner for his usual lunch--pasturized cream cheese on Wonder Bread.

Martyn Pig has been bugging the heck out of me. I've read a dozen books
since meeting him and his fetching young neighbor, Alex, but his
gut-wrenching tale keeps coming back to me, like a fly that repeatedly lands
on my face in the midst of an afternoon nap. Months ago, my daughter
Rosemary had read the advance copy of MARTYN PIG, raved about it at length,
and had used a book report assignment as an excuse to reread it. I had kept
it sitting in my pile of to-reads, until a couple of weeks ago when, as some
of you have heard, I was asked to fill a vacancy on the American Library
Association's Best Books for Young Adults committee. After my appointment,
as I scanned the emailed list of eighty-six titles that had already been
nominated for inclusion by the BBYA committee, I noticed that one of them was
that "murder mystery" that Rosemary was so excited about. (Now she wants to
read additional murder mysteries, but don't be helpful and send me any
titles--I've got her reading more of the towering stack of nominated books
that is piled up next to my bed.)

But, hold on! That editor had left evidence of his crime. On page 10 we
find, "...marketmen shouting above the clamor: Getchur luvverly terkeys
'ere!...Plenny a luvverly turkeys!..."
Now, if that language doesn't evoke memories of Eliza Doolittle from "My Fair
Lady" and Burt from "Mary Poppins!" And we know those stories took place in
ENGLAND. Right? But, then, the marketmen continue:
Wrappin' papah! Five sheets a buck!..."
Wait! Five sheets a buck? No. No way! I remember, "Feed the birds,
tuppence a bag." And shillings. And, when visiting Britain, I remember
using pounds and pence, and I kind of know that whole deal about Euros. So
what, then, is the talk of five sheets a BUCK, and DOLLARS this and DOLLARS
that throughout the story, when the characters watch "Inspector Morse" (a
British TV show), and bus tickets "snicker out" of the ticket machine?

When you reach page 97 and a character says "...or we could go to Australia,
or America...," then you know that the story does, indeed, take place in
Britain and that the butchering of one of the year's great young adult
thrillers has taken place.

This is a sad state of affairs, since this was (pre-Americanization) such a
believable and well-written story that I spent a couple of hours with my
stomach knotted up, anxiously turning the pages. At one point the author
"carelessly" drops a clue, and we spend an interminably long time not knowing
whether he's given us the key to the mystery, or whether he's just leading us
on. I clenched the book, unable to read fast enough to find out what the
truth was.

"Did I hate him? He was a drunken slob and he treated me like dirt. What do
you think? Of course I hated him. You would have hated him, too, if you'd
ever met him...I hated every inch of him. From his broken-veined, red-nosed
face to his dirty, stinking feet. I hated his beery guts. But I never meant
to kill him."

I checked with Amazon UK about getting the un-Americanized version. Their
summary of the book (in Brit-speak) read in part:

"With his father lying dead at his feet, Martyn Pig has two choices--he can
either tell the police what happened, that it was an accident, or he can get
rid of the body and pretend to get on with the rest of his life. He decides
on the latter and with the help of Alex, a girl who has become more to him
than just-a-friend, he travels down a frightening road where the escalating
lunacy of events is quite breathtaking...This compelling book will make you
laugh out loud from sheer nervousness at the madness of it all. It's a
cracker."

It turns out that you can buy the British edition of MARTYN PIG from them,
including shipping, for the equivalent of $21.75 American. (Note that if
ordering from Amazon UK, books are not "shipped," they are "dispatched.")

I remember reading how pissed off the Beatles were when Capitol Records
included the classical interludes from the movie "Help!" on the American
version of the soundtrack album. "What is that bloody shit?!" (or something
like that) is what John Lennon was reputed to have said about the affair.
Nowadays, when you purchase the Help! CD, you get the original British
version.

I can just imagine poor Kevin Brooks saying the same thing about what has
been done to his first novel. With any luck, The Chicken House, publishers
of MARTYN PIG, will redeem themselves by releasing the original version of
the book when it's time to do the paperback. Whether or not the book has
lost the chance to win awards here in the States is yet to be seen. But in
either case, MARTYN PIG is an extraordinary book that is well worth reading.

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy at aol.com ( )

This thrill novel names Martyn Pig, is more of the different books Kevin Brooks has published. This thriller novel is nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to these types of genre’s. Martyn Pig is of a teenage boy who kills his alcoholic father. This novel though hard to grasp at first, sort of changes actions after he kills his father, and the story still moves slow for a while until his best friend Alex is thrown in. Kevin Brooks is an author that normally strives, and really puts his foot in Fictional, and Non-Fictional novels, but this I must say was very good, I hope to read more of his titles. Overall this novel was very good, and had a lot of detail and really allowed you to really get to know all the characters that were in it, and their perspectives on life. Martyn though the main character wasn’t the most interesting and that’s something that’s unique. Normally the main character has all the imagery and suspense but Martyn really didn’t, Alex had the majority of the exciting parts. This was the first novel I read that involved somebody killing someone, and there plan of trying to get out of it. So comparing to other young adult books that involve this type of plot Im really new to this genre. I’m also new on comparing him to his other books, but from this he’s an really good and very detailed author. I would definitely recommend this book to anybody male or female, it really makes you think and you have to pick-up on detail to fully understand this novel, but I feel it is a must read book.

Martyn Pig, with a "Y" and one "G", has a complicated life. His father's an alcoholic, his mother abandoned him and he just wants to be left to read mysteries and watch Inspector Morse on the telly. Then his father dies, leaving Martyn to try and get rid of the body so he won't have to go live with his awful spinster aunt. Lots of twists. ( )

“Martyn Pig” is an engaging suspense story well suited to the 6th -8th grade crowd. Mr. Brooks does of fine job mixing typical adolescent topics, crushes and self-absorption, with more serious themes of death and the definition a ‘bad’ person. The suspenseful edge and twist ending will make for a pleasant read for most young adolescents.

There are a couple of passages that standout: Martyn describing the noisiness of life and a scene where he wonders where he goes during sleep. Mr. Brooks channels both Mark Twain and J.D. Salinger is the incarnation of Martyn Pig. Martyn’s relationship with his Aunty Jean is a modernized version of Huck Finn and the Widow Douglas and Martyn’s sarcastic tone is similar to that of Holden Caulfield. The author uses morbid humor masterfully, never venturing too far on neither side of satire nor the macabre.

All in all, a solid adolescent title for the suspense-minded teen.

Also Reviewed on The Wild Rumpus Starts Children's Literature Website

Martyn Pig lives with his alcoholic Dad (his mother left a few years earlier). One night Martyn and his Dad are yelling at each other and his Dad hits his head on the fireplace and dies instantly. Marytn isn't sure what to do, so he does nothing. His friend Alex comes over. The two of them try to figure out what to do.

Written from Martyn's perspective the novel often has a sense of being inside his head and following his sometimes random thoughts. While I really liked the premise and certain parts, I found myself barely skimming many passages that couldn't keep my attention. ( )