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Title: The Mammoth Cheese by Sheri Holman, Laural Merlington ISBN: 1-59355-112-6 Publisher: Brilliance Audio Pub. Date: August, 2003 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 10 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 (14 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Fun to Read but the Story Falls Apart
Comment: If you have ever wondered what the real difference between fiction and non-fiction is, the answer is that good fiction actually has to make sense and be plausible. Real-life, non-fiction often doesn't make sense but a good story had better make sense.
Sheri Holman's Mammoth Cheese is guilty of failing to meet the standard. That's not to say I didn't enjoy reading it and would even recommend it to some of my friends but there are too many absurd plot lines to be ignored.
The setting of the story is a small town known as Three Chimneys in Virgina. In my opinion the main character is a farmer named Margaret Prickett who is a divorced, boutique cheese maker forced to make ends meet and raise a junior-high age daughter. To say she is quirky is an understatement; she forbids her daughter many of the modern pleasures of current life including brand name clothing, fast food, and movies. She often rails against corporate American and especially corporate farming being the death of the family farm.
That's not surpirising because her dairy farm is in foreclosure, so she gets behind a presidential candidate named Adams Brooke who promises to enact an amnesty regarding farm debt to save family farmers.
It's a pretty basic story but somewhere along the way we get to learn more about Three Chimneys. One such person is a woman named Manda Frank who breaks the record for births after taking fertility drugs and being counseled by a local clergyman who happens to be the father of Ms. Prickett's hired hand. The hired hand is also a history buff who likes to dress up as Thomas Jefferson and re-enact many of his speeches. Somewhere along the line he mentions the idea of delivering a giant cheese to the new president based on something that actually happened to Thomas Jefferson. The idea is pushed by his father who starts to feel some guilt regarding the advice he gave to Manda Frank. Farmer-cheesmaker Prickett ends up making the big cheese for the President, but I will not reveal more of the plot.
The problem is that there is too much absurdity for all of this to work. Multiple firms, Jefferson impersonators, big cheeses, etc. One story device might have worked, but after all you wonder if the purpose is to come with a farce. The good news is that Holman can write well so she takes you along and you have fun reading.
The problem is that it eventually fell apart when Holman moved away from the plot and dealt with human emotions. The middle school-aged daughter's relationship and feelings regarding her history teacher was somewhat offensive. Ms. Prickett's relationship with her daughter and farmhand and ex-husband turned her from being a sympathetic character to one that I began to hate.
As a whole, it's an ambitious book but it lost me in the end. After reading it, I didn't gain added sympathy or understanding for farming life which I think was one of her points. Given the positive points of the book, I will probably read other works by her but this one is a tough one to like.
Rating: 4
Summary: a good read and a better ending
Comment: You gotta give credit to someone willing to title her book The Mammoth Cheese. Luckily, the story stands strong against the title. This is a more sprawling work than Holman's The Dress Lodger. While its geographic base is pretty focused, rarely leaving the small town it is set in, the story spins through a large number of characters and several major plotlines, including a pending farm foreclosure, a Presidential election, the aftermath of a divorce, the birth of 11 babies to one mother, a spiritual crisis, several mid-life crises, unrequited love, a growing relationship between a teacher and his pupil though whether it tends toward good or bad remains up in the air for a while, and of course, the creation and transport of the mammoth cheese itself. That's a lot to tackle and Holman admirably handles the load. As one might expect with so many characters, some are not as fully fleshed out as one would like. The history teacher and the ex-husband in particular I thought were a bit weak in their portrayal, as is the mother of 11 until somewhat later in the book. While their lack of full depth is noticeable, it does not detract over much from the work as a whole. And their somewhat shallow development is more than made up for by the rest of the characterization, which is deeply satisfying. One begins to care for and root for these characters early on. We take on their hopes and desires along with their despair and fear. The woman desperately trying to hold onto her farm and family, the Jefferson impersonator trying to figure out who he is behind his persona, the minister struggling with his recent decisions and his possible motivations, eventually the mother of 11, and perhaps most of all, the young daughter struggling to find herself among and sometimes in spite of all these adults surrounding her. The tension steadily rises throughout the novel as questions come nearer their answers, answers which Holman skillfully manages to not foreshadow too obviously. And because we care about the characters, we care greatly about the answers. There are moments that are truly terrifying, especially as one moves toward the close. It seems lately that my biggest complaint about recent books, even ones I loved such as Lovely Bones or Bel Canto, is that so many of them have had poor or even terribly endings. I'm happy to say this book broke the trend. The ending here is not only earned by what has gone before, but is the best part of the book. Another complaint I've had a lot lately is that so many characters in a lot of recent books have acted not as real people would but in ways to service the plot. Once again, The Mammoth Cheese shines as the opposite. all of the characters, even the small ones, even the ones not so well drawn, at least act human. They do dumb things, they doubt, they make mistakes, they get lucky. and because we can recognize ourselves in their thoughts and actions we care even more about what happens to them. I wouldn't call this a great book or say as some reviewers have that I couldn't put it down though I never considered doing so. It did bog down in two or three places, though only briefly, and as mentioned, some characters were too sketchy for my liking, but even in the slow parts I wanted to read on because I wanted to know what happened to these people. More than wanting to know, I wanted the right things to happen to them. I won't say if they did, but it's worth finding out.
Rating: 5
Summary: What a pleasant surprise!
Comment: I got this book purely by accident when I forgot to mail in my book club notice warning them not to send me this month's selection! So I came on Amazon, read the reviews and decided to give it a shot. I am so glad I did because this book is a wonderful little treasure. The characters are wonderfully drawn, and not in that annoying "small-town cliche" sort of way. Each is unique and complex and I truly cared about them all! Holman's writing is witty and smooth and the characters are unforgettable, especially the young Polly Marvel. Loved it!
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