Inside almost every American and quite a few Europeans there's a farm lad trying to get out. The young dream of a machine-free life and organic bread, their elders of traditional American values and home-cooked pie. Robert Peck is writing for them all [in "A Day No Pigs Would Die"]….

In showing just how earthy farm life is and how stoic a farmer and his children must be Mr. Peck spares us nothing. Vivid animal mating scenes, butcherings, a cruel economy that forces a boy to help slaughter his beloved pet pig and his father to insist that he does—we get the lot, along with delightful rural scenes and picturesque turns of speech….

I found it sometimes sickening, often entrancing. But there were also too many times when I could feel the author digging me in the ribs, self-consciously demanding my tears or my laughter.

Pamela Marsh...