The Pigman Chapter Summaries

Words: 719
Pages: 3

The novel begins with an “oath” signed by John Conlan and Lorraine Jensen, two high school sophomores, who pledge that they will report only the facts about their experiences with Mr. Pignati. When John, Lorraine, and two teen troublemakers, Norton Kelly and Dennis Kobin, are bored, they make prank phone calls. The goal of the game is to see who can stay on the phone the longest. When it is Lorraine's turn, she picks out Mr. Pignati’s phone number and pretends to be calling from a charity. After winning the game with a long conversation with him, Mr. Pignati offers to donate ten dollars. Against Lorraine’s better judgement, they travel to his house to collect the funds. After hesitantly accepting “The Pigman’s” offer of going to the zoo, a …show more content…
Pignati returns to find his house ransacked, and is incredibly hurt when he finds out John and Lorraine were responsible for the incident. The cops are called as John and Lorraine believe they will get arrested, but The Pigman does not press charges. They try to go back into the house and apologize, but the officer tells them Mr. Pignati is crying and that they need to go home. After going home, Lorraine is beaten by her mother and John’s parents say they are getting him therapy, which will never happen. Feeling terrible, the two offer to take him to the zoo to help make up for the destruction of his house. When they arrive at the zoo to meet Bobo, they discover that Bobo the baboon, Mr. Pignati’s favorite animal and buddy, has died. Overcome with grief and the heaviness of the recent events, Mr. Pignati suffers from cardiac arrest and dies, leaving John and Lorraine grieving and reflecting on the fragility of life. John tells Lorraine to wait outside of the area where he died, fearing that her mother would hit her in repercussions of the situation. They blame themselves for his death, and believe that he would have been better off never meeting them in the first place. John and Lorraine write their story down in their memoir epic The