50 Fun Facts About The Pigman

In The Pigman, what kind of animal is Bobo, the zoo resident Mr. Pignati calls his best friend?

Bobo is a baboon, and a nasty one: the zookeeper dislikes him, while Mr. Pignati sees only a loving friend who has earned his treats.

In the prank phone call that begins The Pigman, Lorraine pretends to be calling from what?

A charity is her cover story, and the trusting old man promptly offers a ten-dollar donation that John insists on collecting in person.

In The Pigman, John types symbols such as @#$% throughout his narration in place of what?

Curse words become typed symbols whenever John tells the story: he warns readers he has one string for a mild curse and a longer one for a truly revolting curse.

Which gift does Mr. Pignati buy for John, Lorraine and himself on a shopping spree in The Pigman?

Roller skates for all three turn his house into a rink, and a game of tag on them ends with the old man's first heart attack.

The Pigman author Paul Zindel taught which subject at a New York high school for ten years?

Chemistry was his day job at Tottenville High School, and he mined the classroom: Lorraine was modelled on a student in one of his chemistry classes.

Norton, the bully of The Pigman, earned his mocking nickname after being caught shoplifting what?

Marshmallows made him the Marshmallow Kid for good, and John, who knows him well, reckons the taunted thief could grow up to be a killer.

In The Pigman, what does John squeeze into the lock his father fits on the family telephone?

Glue jams the lock so his father cannot dial either, and John then works out a way to place calls anyway, leaving himself the only user.

Which major award did The Pigman author Paul Zindel win in 1971 for his play about marigolds?

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama went to The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, a play he had written back in 1964 as a teacher.

The Pigman is set in which part of New York, where author Paul Zindel was born and raised?

Staten Island was home turf: Zindel was born in its Tottenville neighbourhood, taught at Tottenville High School and set many of his books there.

How do narrators John and Lorraine divide the storytelling in Paul Zindel's novel The Pigman?

They alternate chapters, John taking the odd numbers and Lorraine the even, and each often goes back to correct the other's version of events.

What drink does Mr. Pignati offer teenagers John and Lorraine on their first visit in The Pigman?

Wine comes out as soon as they arrive, along with food and an invitation to the zoo, a warmer welcome than either teen gets at home.

What career does John dream of in The Pigman, an ambition his father dismisses as a foolish fantasy?

An actor is what John longs to be, but his father, a Wall Street trader, expects him to put on a suit and join the family business.

Which career does Lorraine hope for in The Pigman, an ambition she keeps secret from her mother?

A writer is what she means to become, and she already observes people like one: her thoughtful half of the story balances John's impulsive half.

In The Pigman, which unflattering nickname does John use for his father whenever he mentions him?

The Bore is his label for a father who thinks only about trading, while John's mother gets the equally fond title of the Old Lady.

Which of John's habits does Lorraine keep urging him to quit throughout Paul Zindel's The Pigman?

Smoking is the one she nags about, yet John carries on, feeling his home life is too bleak to make a long life worth protecting.

In the telephone game the teens play at the start of The Pigman, what wins a round?

Keeping a stranger on longest is the goal, using any outlandish story, and Lorraine's turn happens to land on a lonely widower glad to chat.

On the final zoo trip in The Pigman, what greets John, Lorraine and Mr. Pignati at Bobo's enclosure?

An empty cage is all they find, and an indifferent attendant's news that Bobo has died brings on the heart attack that kills Mr. Pignati.

What is the first name of Mr. Pignati's late wife, whose clothes still fill her closet in The Pigman?

Conchetta has been dead for months, yet her husband tells visitors she is merely away, because he cannot bear to admit she is gone.

Which snack does Mr. Pignati feed Bobo on his regular zoo visits in Paul Zindel's The Pigman?

Peanuts are Bobo's favourite, he insists, and a rude vendor selling them is the first of the bad omens Lorraine counts on that trip.

In The Pigman, Mr. Pignati claims his wife is away visiting his sister in which US state?

California is the story he repeats even to himself, because pretending she is on a trip hurts less than admitting she has died.

Which find in Mr. Pignati's house tells John and Lorraine the truth about his wife in The Pigman?

Funeral documents turn up while they explore the house, including the bill, and Zindel reproduced some of them in the book as the teens see them.

Who do John and Lorraine claim to be so the hospital lets them visit Mr. Pignati in The Pigman?

His children is the lie they tell, and it is nearly true: by then they have become the family the lonely, childless widower never had.

In The Pigman, Lorraine's mother distrusts all men after her husband did what while she was pregnant?

He cheated on her while she was expecting Lorraine, and the bitterness now pours out as constant warnings to her daughter about boys.

In The Pigman, what job lets Lorraine's mother pocket light bulbs and food from the homes she works in?

A nurse to the terminally ill, she feels underpaid and evens the score by taking supplies, even steering families to an undertaker who pays her.

In The Pigman, John's father works on a Wall Street exchange trading which commodity?

Coffee rules his life: his mood depends on how many lots he sells in a day, and he expects John to take over half the business.

John's mother in The Pigman escapes every family argument by throwing herself into which activity?

Cleaning is her refuge: she keeps the house as neat as a museum, with furniture under plastic, so that nobody inside it can relax.

In The Pigman, what did John once set off in the boys' bathroom at his high school?

Firecrackers in the bathroom head John's list of pranks, the work of a clever, restless boy with parents who never try to understand him.

What does John get his whole class to roll across the floor on substitute-teacher days in The Pigman?

Apples, bruised and rotten ones, go rolling the moment the substitute turns her back, a stunt John organises for the entire room.

Where did Lorraine first meet John in The Pigman, when he sat down beside her and burst out laughing?

On the bus he simply started laughing; the lonely new girl took offence, then caught the giggles herself, and they were friends from that day.

Paul Zindel's The Pigman opens with what, signed by both John and Lorraine, before the story starts?

An oath to record only the facts comes first, complete with both signatures, one of several handwritten extras printed in the book.

Where do John and Lorraine say they are typing their account of Mr. Pignati in The Pigman?

The school library is their writing room, where the librarian looking on assumes the two are hard at work on a book report.

Which quiet spot do John, Lorraine and friends use for drinking, away from adults, in The Pigman?

A cemetery suits them because grown-ups rarely come, and John lies on the grass half hoping for a ghost as proof of an afterlife.

Which field of study fascinates Lorraine, one of the two teenage narrators of The Pigman?

Psychology is one of her two possible careers, and her habit of analysing everyone makes her the counterweight to impulsive John.

What is the first name of Mr. Pignati, the lonely widower at the centre of Paul Zindel's The Pigman?

Angelo Pignati owes his nickname to his surname and to the pig figurines his wife began collecting when she married into the name.

What is the surname of Lorraine, the more cautious of the two teenage narrators of The Pigman?

Lorraine Jensen was the new girl in the neighbourhood, shy about her looks and friendless for weeks until John came along.

Paul Zindel's 1980 sequel to The Pigman adds which word to the original title?

Legacy completes the title; the sequel opens four months on, as John and Lorraine get a second chance with another lonely old man.

Paul Zindel met the trespassing teenager who inspired John of The Pigman while house-sitting in what?

A castle with fifty rooms was his free lodging, and when he ran out to scold the intruder he found a boy interesting enough to write about.

Paul Zindel followed The Pigman with a 1969 novel about teen pregnancy titled My Darling, My what?

Hamburger is the odd word in the title of his second teen novel, which follows two couples through senior year and takes on sex, contraception and abortion.

Which illness forced John's father to give up heavy drinking, according to John, in The Pigman?

Cirrhosis of the liver ended his drinking, but too late for John, who had been handed sips of beer at parties since he was small.

Which electrical device does Norton steal from Mr. Pignati's house at the party in The Pigman?

An oscilloscope is his loot, and when John goes after him for the theft, Norton takes revenge by smashing the pig collection.

On the first zoo trip in The Pigman, which bird chases Lorraine for her bag of snacks?

A peacock goes after her, the second bad omen she counts that day; the third is a child staring at her beside the bat display.

In The Pigman, Norton turned bully after other kids teased him as a child for playing with what?

Dolls got him mocked so badly that he remade himself as the hardest kid around, picking fights, throwing stones and later stealing.

Which relative do John's parents keep holding up as a model for him in Paul Zindel's The Pigman?

His older brother Kenneth, eleven years his senior, took the respectable path their father approves of, and John never hears the end of it.

Which famous playwright taught Paul Zindel creative writing in college, years before The Pigman?

Edward Albee became his mentor and champion, and Zindel finished another original play before he had even graduated.

Which lifetime honour for authors of teen fiction did The Pigman author Paul Zindel receive in 2002?

The Margaret A. Edwards Award cited five of his books, the Pigman trilogy among them, and its jury said his characters still spoke to teens.

Researching The Pigman, Paul Zindel found the few teenage boys who read at all had read which novel?

The Catcher in the Rye was always the one, read because girlfriends insisted, which convinced him that teens needed more honest books.

In Paul Zindel's 1980 sequel to The Pigman, the old man hiding in Mr. Pignati's house is dodging whom?

The IRS is after him, it seems; he proves to be a bankrupt subway designer, and the teens see a chance to make amends for the past.

Unlike the two novels before it, Paul Zindel's third Pigman book belongs to which genre?

Autobiography, not fiction: it covers his own painful childhood and the inspiration for his work, so fans count it as an unofficial third Pigman book.

What became of the screenplay Paul Zindel wrote to bring The Pigman to the screen?

It was never filmed, as no filmmaker took it up, a rare miss for an author who scripted Hollywood features such as Runaway Train.

In Paul Zindel's sequel to The Pigman, where does John gamble away the old Colonel's money?

Atlantic City is where the cash vanishes, and the drive home goes worse still, with the ailing Colonel rushed to hospital.