Sam Sax

2024. This book is about someone’s life flashing before their eyes as they self-immolate. It’s achronological, jumping all over their life and their parents’ lives and their ancestors’ lives. They are Jewish, and queer, and not cis. It’s a beautiful, lyrical book, but I wished it would define things more clearly. The main character’s gender, and what they were protesting. Perhaps as a person who struggles with suicidal feelings, it wasn’t a good idea to read this. I want to show more know why they did it, but Sax only hints at why. Trauma from their mother leaving them, from some abusive relationships, the dire state of the world? I tore through it looking for answers, but there were only questions. It made me realize I’m tired of reading books about our dystopian reality and how doomed we are. I’m switching to fantasy. I’ve had enough of realism, pessimism and cynicism. show less

Thank you NetGalley and (publisher) for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.


Sam Sax's Pig is an incredibly imaginative and obscure collection of poems and storytelling, most of them rooted in the pig—the pig mask, pig persona, pig hearts, the dead pig, etc. The pig becomes a symbol, a malleable thing, allowing for sax to comment on personal experiences, like queerness, religion, sex, politics. I purposely mention these themes broadly, as sax discusses them show more each intimately in more ways than one. Even when the pig is not mentioned, the stories in these poems still somehow surround them—with stench, with themes of imitation, with being unwanted, with being wanted in the wrong ways, at the wrong times.

The connection between history and current life, even the future, exists in so many of these poems. Our ancestry is so tightly connected to who we are, and to the shame we carry for being nothing like them. I found these poems of historical events, whether they are personal or universal, to be especially "emotional" (I use air quotes because emotional does not even begin to encapsulate what I mean).

As much as I love the themes, there is no denying sam sax's strength is in form, in playfulness, in experimentation. No two poems ever feel the same. Down to the titles, sam sax brings something unique.

and those FIRST LINES! The bits of dialogue! There are just so many gorgeous, GORGEOUS lines everywhere. Even so, each poem held its own, asked its own questions, forced us to commit to and emotionally care for an entirely new story on each page. I found myself learning about history, about sax's own experiences, about myself. This is one of my favorites from sam sax. show less

i liked this. there were many lines and phrases that touched me, but overall the poetry feels... young. unfinished, maybe, or not quite fully refined.

A self searching episodic novel about a gay Jewish young man that at one point even attempts suicide. We follow his jobs, relationships and family life. A major event here is that when he is a child Ezra's mother abandons the family for little apparent reason leaving lots of unanswered questions for Ezra and his dad. The book is well written and I never skimmed a passage which I do in most books. I wanted to read every word. This is high praise.