This Gouda novel rides the wheel of American cheese

Meanwhile, as Manda's modern miracles begin to die from complications of low birth weight, the media attention quickly turns dark. The celebration that Pastor Vaughn hoped would invigorate his community gives way to memorial services and accusations of medical and pastoral malpractice.

Driven by doubts about his real motive for encouraging Manda to complete her high-risk pregnancy, he devises another oversized plan to cleanse the community's dark reputation, save Margaret's farm, and redeem himself: a mammoth cheese.

This isn't as silly as it sounds. Well, actually, it's just as silly as it sounds, but it has historical precedent. During Jefferson's first term, a group of Baptists in Massachusetts were so grateful for the new president's promise of religious freedom that they made him a 1,235-pound wheel of cheese and delivered it to Washington.

August knows that the first mammoth cheese was something of a national joke, but he can't bear to disappoint his father or pass by a chance to help Margaret save her farm (even though he notes "she was positively Federalist in her world view"). So he agrees to give Mr. Jefferson's blessing to this gigantic cheesy gift for the new president.

"It's important to me," Margaret says, "that this cheese not be misconstrued." But we know there are no simple cheeses.

While all these romantic and filial ingredients ripen, the novel also somehow blends a clever satire of American politics with a sweet appreciation for true patriotism. And Holman grasps the mechanics of farming as confidently as she handles the mechanics of political theory; she understands the movements of 18th-century history as well as the movements of a modern teenager's heart.

Her depiction of postpartum depression and the Faustian complexities of fertility medicine gives the story a sharp taste, but the richer flavor comes from Holman's sympathy for the muted courtship between Margaret and her reticent Jefferson impersonator. It's charming to see him turn to his patron saint for romantic advice as much as for political wisdom. (His only other relationship had been with an Emily Dickinson impersonator years before.)

"The Mammoth Cheese" teeters on the edge of parody from time to time, but Holman keeps all these wonderful characters - including the cows - grounded in her deeper themes about the debt one generation owes another and the lust for independence. Yes, colonies rebel and the ones we want most to protect reject our care as tyranny, but Holman knows that good parents can love their children and still let them have their whey.

• Ron Charles is the Monitor's book editor. Send comments about the book section toRon Charles.

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