“OK, say you have always wanted to eat Gwyneth Paltrow but realize that cannibalism is wrong. You would stalk her and when she is asleep or passed out or otherwise unsuspecting, you swab some part of her body that has bacteria on it–”
“All of her body has bacteria on it.”
“Right, I know. But anyone could get an arm swab. The trophies for these guys are samples taken from hard to access locations. The crotch is the gold standard, but mouth or toes also score high.”
“They score each other?”
“Unofficially. There is a website at celebritycheesehunters.com where they brag about their conquests and exchange recipes and cheese-making tips.”
“Sounds like a hard way to make a living,” I say.
“It’s even harder than it sounds. You have to take the bacteria—bonus points if they don’t know that you have swabbed them—cultivate it in petri dishes until you have enough of it, and then add it to milk so that it acidifies the sugars and makes it curdle—“
“I know how cheese is made,” I say.
“Right, but it takes a certain kind of yeast to make a certain kind of cheese. Like there is Limburger, Taleggio, Gouda—”
“I’ve seen the cheese shop sketch; I get the picture.”
“And then, in the case of vegetarian cheese you can use microbial yeast to make the rennet.”
“Vegetarian cheese,” I ponder aloud.
“There’s a flame war going on in the forums. There is a guy there who claims to have gotten bacteria from Brook Shields and yeast from Helena Bonham Carter.”
My mind spins for traction. “There’s no way that could still be vegetarian!”
———
REVIEWS
“Part action, part thriller, all comedy, The Librarian at the End of the World fires on all cylinders. Fans of Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace will revel in the ridiculousness that is Miller’s America.”
“A constantly surprising picaresque journey through cultural darkness”
“A most unique rollicking story that careens from the almost familiar instantly into a world of what is happening here?
“Not so much a novel as a perpetual- motion machine: part road-show, part parable, careening between surrealism and comedy”
“Laugh out loud rambling tale of the future/present”
“Prepare to be blown away”
“On the cutting edge of audacious literature”
“Takes madcap to a new level, blending Preston Sturges and Philip Dick”
“Outrageous and thought-provoking”
“Just blown away.”
“Fantastic and bizarre”
“Lovecraft turns Beatnik and drops acid”
“One of the absolutely most freakishly odd books I have ever read”
“It’s like E. L. James, Larry Flynt, and Hunter Thompson somehow merged their DNA”
“Even Carrie Fisher (yes, her vagina is in here) isn’t safe from this menace!”
“If you are looking for a completely unique book, this one is hot!”
“Funny and intelligent”
“Filled with hedonism, erotica and hilarity.”
“Only for strong and fearless readers.”
“Wild, trippy, fun, and sometimes profound”
“I found myself engaged, disconnected and overwhelmed all at the same time”
“No one would ever expect this”
“Imagine a world where Thin Man was co-written by Tim Leary and Douglas Adams and set in the Office staffed by assassins”
“Brilliant, raunchy, hilarious, heartfelt, and by the end, breathtaking”
“Social satire at its best”
“In the end, this romp becomes something else. It becomes a work of art, moving and funny and memorable.”
Editor’s note: Technically it is her vulva, not her vagina.
Author Mark Miller 