Processed Cheese
A Novel
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
From an "astonishing" writer (Toni Morrison), the savagely funny story of a couple who unexpectedly come into some money in a wealth-obsessed America deranged by Mammon.
A bag of money drops out of the sky, literally, into the path of a cash-starved citizen named Graveyard. He carries it home to his wife, Ambience, and they embark on the adventure of their lives, finally able to have everything they've always thought they deserved: cars, guns, games, jewels, clothes—and of course sex, travel, and time with friends and family. There is no limit except their imagination and the hours in the day, and even those seem to be subject to their control.
Of course, the owner of the bag is searching for it, and will do whatever is necessary to get it back. And, of course, these new riches change everything—and nothing at all.
Darkly hilarious, Processed Cheese is both satire and serious as death. It's a road novel, a family story, and a last-girl-standing thriller of once-in-a-generation vitality and inventiveness. With the clarity of a Swift or a Melville, Wright has created a funhouse-mirror drama that puts all the chips on the table and every bullet in the clip, down to the last breathtaking moment.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The disappointing latest from Wright (Going Native) takes place in an alternate reality much like the current world, except that every place, every brand name, almost every proper noun has morphed into something bizarre. The "Eyedropper" building provides a view of "ReadyToWear" river; all the characters have outlandish names like BlisterPac, DelicateSear, and Graveyard. One day a giant bag of money falls out of the sky, and Graveyard picks it up and takes it home. Now he and his wife, Ambience, are fantastically wealthy, and they proceed to spend their fat stacks on bottles of "LaughFrogg," a "HomoDebonaire" car, a "LampLighter 505" gun, and anything else they could possibly desire. But of course the money really belongs to someone else a horny corporate titan named MisterMenu, who sends his goon BlisterPac to track down the bag's whereabouts. Graveyard and Ambience retreat to the farm country of Randomburg, but BlisterPac is hot on the trail. Various subplots and asides about Graveyard's disaffected siblings SideEffects and Farrago add some depth to the hollow main characters. But this hypersexualized, hypercommercialized surreal world never feels consequential or any less absurd than the characters' names or circumstances. Wright's goofy postmodern tale of money, sex, and guns is imaginative but trivial.
