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Fade begins with the first person narration of a 13-year-old boy named Paul in a small rural town, who learns that he has the genetic power to fade (become invisible.) This power is passed down from uncle to nephew, and does not do any good for the bearers of it.
I first read this book when I was in high school. What I remembered about it was that it had an questionably reliable narrator, some surprise twists, and that it was about a family that had the power of invisibility. (Or did they?)
What I did not remember:
Underage nephew/aunt incest. I had literally zero recollection of this, even though it's a pretty big part of the book and is quite explicit.
Another thing I did not remember: Twincest. This is a smaller part of the book, but also fairly explicit.
Apparently I forgot everything everything that did not have to do with invisibility. I feel that this was a good choice on the part of my memory.
Fade is a pretty dark take on invisibility, based on the idea that all you can really do with it is spy on people and commit crimes. Conveniently to make this point, every time the narrator spies on someone, he sees something horrendous and generally sexual happening. (Oh! I forgot to mention the underage prostitution. There's underage prostitution.) If someone invisibly spied on me, they would be bored out of their gourd.
I also forgot that the book is historical, beginning in the 1930s, set in the French-Canadian community, and also involves the Ku Klux Klan. There is a lot going on in this book.
I don't want to spoil the twists because there's some good ones, but if you like unreliable narrators, spooky takes on psychic powers, and some interesting writing choices (in a good way - I'm not talking about the sex stuff), and are okay with the weird sex or willing to skim at or block it from your memory entirely, I do recommend this book.
I first read this book when I was in high school. What I remembered about it was that it had an questionably reliable narrator, some surprise twists, and that it was about a family that had the power of invisibility. (Or did they?)
What I did not remember:
Underage nephew/aunt incest. I had literally zero recollection of this, even though it's a pretty big part of the book and is quite explicit.
Another thing I did not remember: Twincest. This is a smaller part of the book, but also fairly explicit.
Apparently I forgot everything everything that did not have to do with invisibility. I feel that this was a good choice on the part of my memory.
Fade is a pretty dark take on invisibility, based on the idea that all you can really do with it is spy on people and commit crimes. Conveniently to make this point, every time the narrator spies on someone, he sees something horrendous and generally sexual happening. (Oh! I forgot to mention the underage prostitution. There's underage prostitution.) If someone invisibly spied on me, they would be bored out of their gourd.
I also forgot that the book is historical, beginning in the 1930s, set in the French-Canadian community, and also involves the Ku Klux Klan. There is a lot going on in this book.
I don't want to spoil the twists because there's some good ones, but if you like unreliable narrators, spooky takes on psychic powers, and some interesting writing choices (in a good way - I'm not talking about the sex stuff), and are okay with the weird sex or willing to skim at or block it from your memory entirely, I do recommend this book.
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Of COURSE it's Robert Cormier
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It's the overall weirdness vibe with unnecessary 🌑DARKNESS🌑 more than the incest. Although the 🌑DARKNESS🌑 is usually more newberry-friendly than this particular (piece of) work
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Edit: Okay, I just looked Cormier up on Wikipedia and read the summary of I Am the Cheese, and wow. I knew bleak curveballs were supposed to be his specialty, but yikes.
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Not sure how that PREVENTS suspicion.
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"The bumblebee flies anyway"—and so too the life-sized model car, which Barney finds and dismantles in a nearby junkyard to reassemble in the attic, will ride. . . straight off the roof of The Complex, the institution where terminally ill teens are receiving experimental treatment.
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I went on a Cormier binge at some point because I guess emo-teen-me found his bleak curveball-ness weirdly addictive. Note that "binge" just meant "all the novels my library had, which was like four of them," which is probably good because that's enough for a lifetime. I remember reading Tenderness and also having no idea what was going on except that it was extremely creepy and messed up.
I am not sure I ever read Fade! I'm currently fighting with former-emo-teen-me as to whether to check if it's at the library. I really don't think I need more Robert Cormier. And yet.
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And I'm also feeling the pull of reading a bunch of these now too.
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ETA: Okay, now I too have read the Wikipedia summary. WOW. That all rang a bell as I read it, but I'd forgotten just how dark it really was!
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At that time I'd already read The Chocolate War, which I'd found mostly confusing, and because of my friend I read I am the Cheese which I remember finding better and more compelling but also depressing, and Other Bells for Us to Ring, his only middle-grade book, which I don't remember finding memorable.
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SAME, APPARENTLY.
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iirc in beyond the chocolate war, the protagonist is a student magician (as well as being a student student) and one of his planned tricks for a talent show or similar involves a guillotine. it's like chekov's guillotine. i spent that entire book waiting for something to go -horribly wrong- and for someone to be -really- guillotined, and cormier chickened out and the ending was a bust. nothing acxtually depressing happened in that book, or if it did, i failed to remember it due to guillotine disappointment.
(sorry typingrsi)
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I would absolutely have bet on a main character being accidentally guillotined in a Robert Cormier novel.
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For some reason I ended up on a Wikipedia dive of Cormier plot summaries a few months ago, and I remain mostly grateful my teenage self heeded all the marketing and did not read any of them.
Though I do kind of regret the lack of retrospective "WTF was I reading?" that comes with, like, VC Andrews.
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(the only depressing teen novel I remember being more annoyed by than The choc War was Paul Zindel’s The Pigman, which was also relentlessly miserable)
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I kept picking up Zindel’s books because the titles were intriguing (Pardon Me, You’re Stepping on my Eyeball etc) but I always regretted it.
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I also somehow read a ton of Robert Cormier despite liking none of his books at all. I think it's just because they were there on the shelf when I was in elementary and middle school—I don't remember reading him at all after that. I did not read the sequel to The Chocolate War.
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Ha ha, yes, same here! Sits at computer, reads book, eats food, goes for walk...