Guest post by Josh Hanagarne, the brilliant creator of World’s Strongest Librarian. You can follow Josh on Twitter.
Chip Kidd is best known for designing book jackets. Google his name, check out his portfolio, and you’ll understand why.
Fortunately, knowing nothing about art and less about graphic design, I am more drawn to Chip’s writing. But it’s not for everyone. Don’t believe me?
The dust jacket of The Cheese Monkeys features several blurbs about the book—and they’re all negative. How do you not love a guy that features the comments of his most shrill critics on the book itself?
The Story, Which Is Less Important Than The Mood
The Cheese Monkeys revolves around a graphic arts class at a small college. The main protagonist is named Happy, but he is not that happy.
His bizarre female counterpoint, Himillsy Dodd, is wonderf
ully unstable and carts around a weird little doll named Baby Laveen. Baby Laveen is always impeccably dressed and eerily lifelike.
The real meat of the story involves their interactions (wars) with their graphic design teacher, Winter Sorbeck.
On their first day of class, they walk into the classroom and take their seats. Winter bellows at them to “Get out! Do it with style this time!”
If that doesn’t sell you on the book, you ain’t alive, my friend. Winter has reasons for everything he does. He subjects a couple of students to the most brutal and hysterical tongue lashings ever committed to paper. It’s making me laugh just thinking about it.
I’m at work pretending to work as I write this, so I better wrap this up before I start laughing any harder.
But I’m Faking This Plot Summary
Very few things are indescribable. The Cheese Monkeys is as close as it gets for me. I’ve summed up the story, sort of, because that’s what we do. Something has to go on those dust jackets, right?
But this book is more about the experience of reading it than about what the words in the book say.
It’s equal parts beautiful, hilarious, horrifying, and bizarre. I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed a book more on a paragraph to paragraph level.
And I don’t know if I’ve closed a book and uttered a more sincere, “What in the hell?”
I love it. I love it more than I can say. I love it as much as the people on the dust jacket hate it.
And now I’m starting to laugh again. It’s that great.
If you read The Cheese Monkeys and it suits you, Kidd just released the follow up: The Learners.
It’s just as good, weird, sad, and wonderful. Oh, and it’s got those awesome Yale Milgram experiments where people were tricked into thinking they were delivering electric shocks to people with heart conditions
Please read it and come talk to me about it. Nobody reads this book and I’ve gotten very lonely.
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Josh Hanagarne writes World’s Strongest Librarian, a blog with advice about battling Tourette’s Syndrome, book recommendations, buying pants when you’re 6’8”, old-time strongman training, and more. Please subscribe to Josh’s RSS Updates to stay in touch.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks so much Josh. Reading your review, I almost wonder why I haven't read this book yet. Perhaps I've been living under a rock? You convinced me, as you usually do. So glad to feature you on TJCC!
i'm laughing out loud just reading your post. thanks, josh.
Okay. I have to read this one. It sounds like it could have been written at the art college my daughter went to … and about a few of her acquaintances. And "Cheese Monkeys" is definitely a title she would have come up with.
Hmmm…. Maybe I should ask her if she's been writing under a nom de plume….
Thanks for commenting Gayze!
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