The Mammoth Cheese: A Novel

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.