The Mammoth Cheese

Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. “A panoramic social novel with a needle-sharp point of view sends up both small-town America and politics” (People). Acclaimed bestselling author Sheri Holman’s third novel, The Mammoth Cheese, has been hailed as “stunning . . . a Great American Novel par excellence” by Newsday and by The New York Times Book Review as “lovely, disarming . . . tough, sad and surprisingly sweet.” Three Chimneys, Virginia resident Margaret Pricket, a single mother and specialty cheese maker, is in danger of losing all she holds dear. Her century-old family dairy farm is falling deeper into debt. Her thirteen-year-old daughter Polly, whom Margaret has tried to shelter from the modern world, is becoming perilously drawn towards her charismatic, subversive history teacher. Her loyal farmhand August, a Thomas Jefferson impersonator by night, is secretly in love with her. And she’s been convinced by the town’s pastor to recreate the original Thomas Jefferson-era, 1,235-pound “Mammoth Cheese,” as a gift for the President elect. Soon the entire town is wrapped up in the endeavor, and Margaret finds herself torn between her principles and her passions. An American pastoral like no other, The Mammoth Cheese is a delicious and satisfying tour de force. A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book A Publishers Weekly Book of the Year A Book Sense 76 Selection “Holman has fashioned a tale that is poignant and powerful and, like an award-winning cheese, surprisingly complex.”—The Washington Post Book World “A capacious book. Huge and amazing things happen within it.”—The Minneapolis Star-Tribune