It's short, but we still spend too much time with the toxic mother of two daughters neither of whom are well portrayed. As a mid-20th century reveal of what can hide under the stone of dysfunctional family life, as opposed to the Ozzie & Harriet & Father Knows Best of the 50s, I guess it caught people's attention, but beyond pure poison there's not much here. ( )

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1964, Pulitzer 1971) has a catchy title. I'd never heard of it. Listened to a single-narrator audiobook reading of the script. Like listening a movie script, dry and perplexing. Should be seen on stage. Then discovered it was actually made into a movie directed by Paul Newman. "Nanny wants some hotsie?!" Much better, awesome really. Joanne Woodward takes an over the top character for the stage and makes her into someone believable, by toning her down for the screen we can better sympathize. ( )

I read this book for the first time over 40 years ago when it was a recent book and remember liking it but never having read it again in all these decades gone by.

I decided to re-visit some of the books I loved as a young person to see how well they've traveled. The Beverly Clearly ones gave me a slight smile, the Frances Lattimore ones which I adored in the late 60s were nice to read again, but were clearly dated. Judy Blume's Deenie was fine, but when I got to Forever, I was bored stiff and stopped. Now it was time to move on to Paul Zindel a huge favorite of my as a tween and young teen. He has not disappointed.

I re-read his Pigman for the first time since the early 70s and it was great. I loved this play probably even a bit more now than then, as I can look back clearly at my dysfunctional childhood with an extremely damaged, abusive and unstable mother. Sometimes when you are young your surroundings affect you deeply, but you are in the midst of it and you know somehow your home is not like other kid's homes, but you deal with it as there is no alternative, especially if you have no other family and your father does not live with you.

Now @ 55, I get to look back and see what other unstable mothers do and say to their daughters, and wonder how they turn out once adults. On the shrink's couch like me, or rising above it all. ( )

A classic story of a dysfunctional family. With an offbeat mother, a daughter who is interested only in science, and another daughter interested primarily in boys and social life, Zindel has set up a situation ripe for conflict. And conflict happens. Clashes between the mother and the school, the mother and the daughters, the sister, and of course the elderly invalid boarding with the family, and the family rabbit. The curtains are opened on a strange family, simultaneously unlikeable and sympathetic, because invariably you will find yourself finding traces of yourself within one of these misfits. It grabs you in the gut. Even more powerful on stage. ( )

the story is slighter than I expected; one young girl is deprived of her mother's attention & love while the sister is overwhelmed by the same ( )