Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780871139009
ISBN number: 0871139006
Label: Atlantic Monthly Press
Manufacturer: Atlantic Monthly Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 592
Printing Date: 2003-07
Publishing house: Atlantic Monthly Press
Sale Popularity Level: 870071
Studio: Atlantic Monthly Press
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
With The Mammoth Cheese, Holman delivers a sharp, contemporary story steeped in history that will captivate a new audience while gratifying readers of her acclaimed earlier work, The Dress Lodger. Beautifully crafted and driven by warm, vibrant characters, The Mammoth Cheese follows the residents of rural Three Chimneys, Virginia, on their historic journey to re-create the making of the original Thomas Jefferson-era, 1,235-pound 'Mammoth Cheese.' As the book opens, the town is joyously celebrating the birth of the Frank Eleven (eleven babies simultaneously born to Manda and James Frank after fertility treatments) and enjoying the thrill of notoriety as reform-minded presidential hopeful Adams Brooke visits the newborns. But as autumn progresses and the babies start to die, the community seeks to redeem itself through the making and transporting of a symbolic Mammoth Cheese to Washington, as a gift for the newly elected President Brooke. Sheri Holman seamlessly weaves together the lives of Three Chimneys, delving into her characters' inescapable family histories as they grapple with religion, divorce, politics, and unrequited love. The Mammoth Cheese is a triumphant exploration of the burdens and joys of rural America and the debts we owe to history, our parents, and ourselves.
Amazon.com Review:
Sheri Holman's The Mammoth Cheese is the Mississippi River of novels. It winds along through most of the great themes of American fiction (tradition vs. innovation, the weight of the past, the dehumanizing effects of industrialization, the rifts between parents and children, men and women), picking up bits of history along the way, and carrying you wherever Holman wishes. The opening pages introduce at least 15 characters (not including the 11 premature babies born to dog trainer Manda Frank), a rough outline of the history of Three Chimneys, Virginia, and more information on small-farm cheesemaking than you might ever have thought you'd would want to learn, let alone absorb with fascination. Along with its moving themes, the pleasures of this novel are in Holman's grasp of human (and not only human) nature, and her gift for expressing this through unexpected details of daily life--that the cows in the local dairy give more milk when Sinatra's playing; that the dirty secret under an eighth-grade girl's mattress is Bride Magazine. Her inconspicuous flashes of verbal brilliance may go unnoticed by all but the most observant readers, but they lend sparkle to a complex and ambitious novel. --Regina Marler
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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There are so many interwoven stories in this book its hard to know where to begin. At its heart, this book is about life in small town America, and the people who live there. Margaret Pricketts is a struggling farmer/cheesemaker who has hung her hopes for saving her farm on the election promises of Adams Brooke. When he wins the presidency, she finds herself at the center of a plan to present him with a mammoth cheese, in a re-enactment of a gift given to Thomas Jefferson. Margaret's daughter, Polly, is struggling to come to terms with her parents' divorce, and finds herself falling into the snares of an older man, while Leland Vaughn struggles to come to terms with the consequences of his advice to Manda Frank, who has just given birth to eleven children through the dubious miracle of fertility treatments. Ultimately, each of these characters must make choices about their future and decide what is most important in their lives. This character-driven narrative delves deeply into each of these diverse characters, and weaves a complex tapestry show the interconnections present in their lives. In the end, things turn out differently than any of them expect, but they have each learned and grown through the experiences along the way.
The author's attention to local detail is impressive, and you get an authentic feel for the rural portion of Central Virginia that is the setting for most of the story. Once I got started, it was hard to put this book down, as these characters intrigued me and I was curious about where they would end up. This is wonderful story telling.
Rated by buyers 
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I thoroughly enjoyed this author's previous two books, but I found this one seriously lacking in dramatic tension.
But more seriously, when I put the book down I was angry and disturbed at what I can't help but read as an anti-Semitic passion play. "The Mammoth Cheese" is about a small, quintessential "American" town (read: Christian) struggling with itself and in a world of greed and lies. In the end, everyone discovers that Life is about the Future, and the Future is about the Children, symbolized by Polly. The villain here is Mr. March, inexplicably Jewish. He is, as Polly once calls him, "a spy," not from the South, an intellectual, a double-talker, a predator and a pedophile (read: Jewish). He is there, naturally, to rape the innocent Christian Future. The story ends, the day is saved, when the Virgin is saved from the Jew by violence, after which he is expelled from the community.
I'd love to hear another reading of this charming parable.
Rated by buyers -
I found this book to be lackluster and quite boring. The plot was tedious and overwritten. The book never drew me in, I never felt like I was in the story. In the end, I just wanted to be done with the book and forget I ever read it.
Rated by buyers 
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A girl learns about life and left-leaning politics while her mother struggles to keep the dairy going, eventually deciding to take issues to the president.
The title is taken from a bit of history of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson history and some philosophy are sprinkled throughout with little of the traditional liberty emphasis, but rather with a mix of opinion.
I found the descriptions of the process of making cheese interesting; they were a reprieve from the dreary days and dreadful decisions in the novel.
This seems to be a bit of learned wisdom for liberals, a confession or suggestion of varied and pervasive self-centered natures, a revelation almost intramural and private, certainly humble.
Rated by buyers -
Miss Holman seems to have some good researchers working for her. And she can put together a nice sentence.
The book turns out not to be funny or interesting though. Boring, boring, boring with characters that I couldn't find any concern for.
I can't imagine why this book ended up with four stars????????????
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