The narrator of Lottie Hazell's debut novel, Piglet, is living a charmed life in London, with all her romantic, professional, and financial desires and aspirations rapidly being fulfilled. Working as a cookbook editor, and swiftly rising in the ranks of the publishing company where she is employed, Piglet is the queen of her own well-appointed kitchen in the fancy new house she shares with her handsome and successful fiancé, Kit, who comes from an upper-crust British family. Their upcoming marriage will afford her the opportunity to shed her far humbler, middle-class origins once and for all.
Or so it seems until the end of this slim and intriguing novel's first chapter. A note prior to the start of the next clues us in to a major plot shift.
Thirteen days before Piglet's wedding, out of the seemingly cloudless blue, fiancé Kit reveals a dark and disturbing secret. In the wake of this revelation, Piglet's carefully constructed reality, as well as her hopes and dreams, are threatened to the point of dissolution.
Will she, or won't she becomes the question. Is marriage still an option for her? Will she continue to distance herself from her family of origin? Will she lose other important relationships with dear friends who, when Piglet spills the beans on Kit, challenge her choices, present and past? Will she, in her distress, put her job in jeopardy? The precarious house of cards that is Piglet's life is exposed as the novel moves forward, and her struggles with maintaining her health, mentally and physically, particularly in her relationship with food, begin to take center stage.
You might think, from this description, that Piglet sounds like a real downer of a book, but I found it to be entirely otherwise. Thanks to Hazell's clear prose and keen attention to detail, her great use of dialogue and characterization, this novel is darkly comic and engaging, even as it exposes the limitations of ambition, the impact of misogyny, and the societal pressures women face today. And then there are the descriptions of food and cooking, which are fascinating, almost to the point of delicious.