Processed Cheese

A Novel

By: Stephen Wright

Narrated by: Robert Petkoff

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.

©2020 Stephen Wright (P)2020 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Processed Cheese does for consumerism what Catch-22 did for war." (Stephen King, best-selling author of IT and The Shining)

"In novel after unsparing novel - each one gorgeous, too, and full of awe - Stephen Wright has emerged as a kind of modern-day Socrates hectoring a complacent citizenry to have a good hard look at its collective delusions. With Processed Cheese, he's written a novel so outrageous and diagnostic of our current ills, it will prove much stronger than hemlock. If you hope to keep up your venality, America, your cruelties, and your death wish, better string this court jester up by his toes." (Joshua Ferris, author of The Dinner Party)

"This dark, harrowing, and wildly funny novel somehow both challenges and affirms that tried-and-true adage: Money isn't everything." (Kirkus)

Charming at first

Comical naming is charming as the start is set up. Then characters keep showing up and you struggle to keep track and the story gets lost. I rarely get this far into a book, realize that the further I get, the more confused I was. Why finish?

Meh

The work of a clever porn-nurtured high School sophomore. I am under whelmed. thanks

Lines were crossed...he went too far!

I really wanted to like this. The Publisher's Summary is what drew me in, but by the time I got to chapter 7, I was ready to throw my phone across room. I like a good Dr. Seuss story, but I draw the line at Thomas Pynchon!

T