Fade, by Robert Cormier

[rachelmanija]

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.

Comments

[scioscribe]

I don't think I ever read any Cormier outside of The Chocolate War, and now I kind of want to read this--except for the aunt/nephew incest part. Twincest is comparatively tame, so way to throw an incest curveball, Cormier!

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.

[rachelmanija]

Holy shit! I think I tried to read that in high school and gave up because I had literally no idea what was going on.

[scioscribe]

I CAN'T STOP READING THESE SUMMARIES NOW. All Fall Down is also a trip.

[rachelmanija]

In his youth, Mickey assassinated school bully Vaughn Materson with a handgun, and later killed his grandfather to prevent raising suspicion.

Not sure how that PREVENTS suspicion.

[rachelmanija]

This looks like Fade is his LEAST depressing book!

"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.

[scioscribe]

Clearly a Robert Cormier binge is something to go on if my will to live ever grows too strong.

[brainwane]

I still remember the incredibly evocative cover for "We All Fall Down" with its silhouettes and fire glimpsed through the windows of a suburban house.

[cahn]

Hahahaha, yeah, I remember I Am the Cheese. For a while I read that once every ten years or so because the first time I read it I had absolutely no idea what was going on and because I am a masochist in this way I kept trying. I think in my 30's I finally pieced the story together enough that I could stop reading it, omg.

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.

[rachelmanija]

Tenderness: Eric and Lori go for a canoe ride. Lori falls overboard and drowns. She tries to grab Eric and take him with her, but fails. He is arrested for murdering her even though he did not. Jake Proctor knows the boy did not murder Lori, but he let Eric go to jail anyway for all the girls that he had murdered without punishment.

[scioscribe]

I feel like I probably would have done the exact same thing if I'd come across Cormier's books when I was a kid. There's an especially hypnotic pull to dark and confusing books at that age.


And I'm also feeling the pull of reading a bunch of these now too.

[genarti]

We read I Am the Cheese in 7th grade English! I have only a vague memory of what happens, but a distinct memory of tentatively enjoying the beginning and hating it by the end.

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!