Adam Weinstein: Two Truths and a Lie (guess which is which)

1. If asked what he might like to be, Adam Weinstein might tell you: a famous cheese smuggler. Camembert, cantal, chaource; epoisses, fourme d'ambert, pont leveque—the names of these famous cheeses are as sweet on the tongue as the actual cheeses to which they’re attached. “It’s a shame,” he might say, “that we have waged this war against the unpasteurized.” For him, the lure of the raw-milk cheese—the earthy flavor cultivated through fermentation and mold—is nearly too much; and if, on a fine spring morning in some out-of-the-way village in the Alps, he is too tempted—he could later be found with a ripe, melting reblochon in his pocket on his way back to the US.

2. If pressed, Adam Weinstein might reveal his simple love of the circus. “The clowns, dancing bears, the cage full of lions—there is nothing I like better, than to spend the afternoon with a bag full of popcorn, and a straw dipped in spun sugar, throwing peanuts to the elephants as they go one-by-one into the big-top, or studying over Peru's ica stonesin the cave of wonders.”

3. But never, not in a million years, will Adam Weinstein tell you about his plans to travel to Hungary and Romania this summer, the countries of his forebears. “To find out about your family?” you might ask. “Alas, no,” he will tell you. “I’m going for the vampires and somnambulists.” You see, Adam Weinstein is secretly obsessed with the Somnambulist, a character from a famous German silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. In fact, Adam Weinstein will soon be writing a novel about the Somnambulist when he was just a boy—that takes place before he was sold to the circus, and forced to forecast the future.