Chip Kidd is a graphic designer, not a writer. This is made clear the moment one sees his first novel, The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters (Scribner). The title page is not a page -- it scrawls across three. The ends of the pages appear smudged until tilted. Tilted one way they read "GOOD IS DEAD" and then "DO YOU SEE?" when tilted.

After all this extravagance the story seems secondary. The story of an unnamed protagonist in his first year at an unnamed State University (obviously Penn State, Kidd himself graduated from PSU in 1986) is rather intriguing. Although the main character is rather bland, he has some very interesting friends and foes.

Himillsy Dodd is possibly the best of these characters. An older, hard-drinking art student, with whom the narrator becomes enamored, Dodd's antics provide many of the bright spots. The other character is Winter Sorbeck, professor of Art 127, introduction to graphic design. In Sorbeck, Kidd paints a loving picture of how he fell in love with graphic design.

The story is good enough, though it partially falls apart at the end. The pages do fly by though and this reader was never bored. The biggest problem seems to be separating the story within the book from the outside. It's hard to imagine the man who created the simple cover to Jurassic Park creating something so ridiculous. If you can get past the silliness of having this book lying around, you might actually enjoy the story.

-- Reviewed by Reid Coploff