Rating: 
Summary: Fun to Read but the Story Falls Apart
Review: 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: 
Summary: Simply Remarkable
Review: In Sheri Holman's previous work, A Stolen Tongue and The Dress Lodger, it's been noted how informed the novels are by Holman's diligent research and attention to detail. With a contemporary setting, I wondered before reading The Mammoth Cheese how she would put her research to work. And yes, there's the issue of multiple births and plenty of historical reference; these should have satisfied the author's penchant for holing herself up in the library. But it's Holman's attention to the details of the heart, the authenticity with which she creates her principal and supporting characters, and the clear-eyed but affectionate way that she describes life in a small town that makes this novel come to life. A wonderful story, told with remarkable skill. Holman has done a marvelous job, infusing the story with trenchant observations of politics and contemporary values, without ever taking away from the sincerity of her characters' hopes and desires.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read!
Review: Is it my imagination, or is it getting harder and harder to find mainstream literary fiction that doesn't stink? Fortunately, just as my cynicism is just about to peak, along comes Sheri Holman and The Mammoth Cheese. Holman's manages to be witty, complex and absorbing all at once. Her novel brilliantly weds personal and political themes in a way that seems utterly natural. In fact, it is natural to wed personal and political themes, and the real genius of this book is to show how political corruption and neglect trickle down to the personal level, and how personal corruption and neglect affect the larger political scene. But never once does the novel come across as ponderous or affected. You'll keep turning the pages not because of Holman's sophisticated ideas but because the book is just so fun to read.
Rating:
Summary: My Only Disappointment. . .
Review: My only disappointment was that the book had to end. I felt as though I knew the characters intimately. A wonderful story with excellent character development. Perhaps a sequel?
Rating:
Summary: Uneven, but interesting
Review: The author chose to write the book with a third person, removed narrator, who tended to give an overview of the very interesting, and usually funny, goings on in the town. This prevented the author from revealing the inner thoughts of the characters at times. This was particularly true of the mother of the eleven babies. The narrator gave us the information, for the most part, that the mother would allow to be known, if a real person. While this added to her character development in someways, I wanted more insight into her thoughts (and her husband, too.)
One interesting aspect was the pastor's realization that his messages from God were tainted by the filter of his own self-interest. I came to like this character very much.
A good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting tale of small town life in "different" times
Review: There have been several reviews which deal very well with the plot, so I will not replicate it here, except to say that the two major events, the arrival of the 11 live born multiple-birth babies and the manufacture of the title's mammoth cheese are the central events of this well crafted novel. But the real richness of the book is in the fabulous characters that Sheri Holman gives us to sympathise with, get annoyed with, and ultimately feel some satisfaction with. And they are great characters too. There is poor Manda who finds herself in IVF hell. There is Margaret, the somewhat eccentric cheese maker who clings to the old life and her somewhat prickly teenaged daughter Polly. There is August the Jefferson devotee and his father the Pastor who somehow seems to be in the middle of all that drives the town and the people who live in it. By the end of the book you feel as if you know these people quite well, and I find that it is this talent that makes me really enjoy a novel. There have been some criticism of elements of this book, and it certainly isn't perfect, but it is a really lovely story, well written, and I am happy to recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting characters; unbelievable events
Review: This is a good read, but I wouldn't go as far as "couldn't put it down." The themes of separation, survival, growing up, growing old, and love in all its strange forms are all interwined into an interesting yet at times almost silly story. A Jefferson impersonator, the multiple-birth of 11 babies, a cynical high school teacher, a female dairy farmer, and an Episcopal priest all make for interesting characters; however, the circumstances they find themselves in are a stretch for the reader to believe. And the making of a mammoth cheese to present to the president of the U.S. just didn't do much for me -- in fact, the whole presidential election bit was a bit weak in my opinion. In short, it's entertaining and thought-provoking in places, but overall rather unbelievable.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Stunning
Review: This is by far the best novel I've read this year. I don't know where Sheri Holman's talent comes from but I suspect it's otherworldly. Her gifts for characterization, her flawless writing and her beautiful yet horrifying story kept me up all night. I literally could not put this book down. Nothing but raves and praise here - I'm going to find her other book, The Dress Lodger, just as soon as the bookstore opens. Read this book. Read this book. READ THIS BOOK.
Rating:
Summary: Jefferson and Cheese and Children
Review: This is the second of Sheri Holman's three novels that I have read. The tiny town of Three Chimneys could not be farther from the brutally harsh and graphic 19th Century London that was home to her last work. There is a great deal that takes place in this tale, it will be left to individual readers whether there is too much. There is a teacher of history, the spawn of a true radical of the 1960's, which the author details right down to his rusted car of the people, his Volkswagen, his rusted Karmen Ghia. His is a personality of show and little substance as he spouts what are now Jeffersonian sound bytes about tyrants and trees of liberty that need their blood. With this player the words have become the trivia of sound bites and the popular political blather of t-shirt slogans and bumper stickered pickups. But unfortunately for some of his pupils, like Jefferson had his Sally, this impotent predator has his young students. There is the earnest minister who wants badly to renew the enthusiasm of his flock, his town. Unfortunately, his conduct appears self-serving to this introspective man, and in the end questionable. While advocating the re-creation of a massive 1200-pound cheese is comparatively harmless, advising a woman to carry 11 children to term is a grand tragedy. The story's heroine, Margaret, would make for a novel herself. This hyper-sensitive woman who is as self-destructive as she is aware, sets out on her odyssey of cheese in response to her own Jefferson, a newly elected candidate who has earned her devotion, not for any demonstrable act, but only for a promise. And he, like Jefferson, will be caught out as a hypocrite and instead of demonstrating that it is possible for politics to be something other than business as usual, he simply reinforces that some of the people can be fooled some and all of the time. There is also a heard of dairy cows that will provide comic relief with their timing of bodily functions and their giving of milk to the sounds of one of the world's favorite crooners. In the end I found this book to be a bit busy, to be lacking focus, like the cheese hazed flag on the book's cover. Four stars is probably erring on the high side for this work, however think of the quartet as earned in a comparative way to other works at the moment and not a rating to stand in perpetuity. Omnis pecuniae pecus fundamentum.
Rating:
Summary: a good read and a better ending
Review: 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.
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