The Mammoth Cheese: A Novel

I've read this and The Dress Lodger. Consider this a comment on them both. Sheri Holman's characters are, each and every one of them, beautifully flawed. They are drawn out to the very detail, and she never ever takes the easy way out and makes them just good or bad. The plots she comes up with are far-fetched and bizarre, but she does this with incredibly real characters, which, if you ask me, makes for incredibly well-written novels.

I cannot recall the last time I read as entertaining and smart a book as the Mammoth Cheese. It's a really smart book about family, destiny, love, and, alas, the government and the ways in which power is obtained and maintained. All of this manifest's in young Polly March's life and a far as narrators go, I haven't come across as interesting a young woman since I read Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye. Sheri Holman nails the sense of a girl beginning to think and live her own life so vividly that I could not put the book down. I was just riveted.This is a big, important, lovable, endearing book. Don't miss it!

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.

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The Mammoth Cheese how she would put her research to work.And yes, there's the issue of multiple births and plenty of historical reference; these should have satisfied the author's penchant for holing herself up in the library.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.

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.