Superior Studio: Writing

Disturbing The Universe

There are two prose writers who I hold near and dear to my heart. They are both considered genre writers and have gone unrecognized in mainstream literary circles despite their impressive bodies of work. The first is Philip K. Dick, who struggled his whole life to, well, live and be happy while writing his demons away; after failing to sell some excellent "straight" novels, he turned to Science Fiction and never looked back.

The other is Robert Cormier: three years older than Phil, now aged 73, he has been married to his wife Constance for over 50 years. He started his writing career as a reporter, moving on to feature writing and eventually editorial, winning many awards for his columns. His success in career and marriage notwithstanding, his similarities to Phil continue in that he wrote a few mainstream novels before switching to the niche that has made him famous: "Young Adult", commonly abbreviated YA, fiction.

Unfortunately, today's typical YA rack is filled with kiddie versions of bland romance novels, movie tie-ins, and mysteries which make up the typical adult fiction section of a bookstore: but there was a time when you could find stories about real people, young and old, coming to terms with a change or realization in life. Even Cormier's mainstream novels had these qualities: NOW AND AT THE HOUR is the moving tale of a man dying from cancer; in A LITTLE RAW ON MONDAY MORNINGS, a young mother trying to support herself learns that she is pregnant from a one-night stand; and TAKE ME WHERE THE GOOD TIMES ARE shows an old man's disturbing escape from his nursing home to a world that he no longer recognizes.

In the early 1970's, ten years after the publication of his earlier "adult" novels, he was inspired by his son Peter, who did not want to participate in a fundraising sale- chocolates- at his private school. Cormier wrote a note explaining this to the headmaster, and it was no big deal; but Cormier had worried, what if there had been peer pressure? What if the headmaster had been unscrupulous? From that seed came his most notorious novel, THE CHOCOLATE WAR, in which that nightmare scenario comes true for the meek new boy Jerry Renault. THE CHOCOLATE WAR is a tour de force about the mob mentality and what happens to those who dare "disturb the universe." It does not have a "happy" ending- but it is a great ending, and at the time of its publication it stirred quite a debate. How could we expose our kids to this kind of bleak reality? Shouldn't we protect them from books like this?

Patricia Campbell's excellent biography of Cormier answers this question with an introductory passage from Yevgeny Yevtushenko, entitled "Lies":

And so, despite the protests that such a novel was too depressing for teens, THE CHOCOLATE WAR won its own critical victory and has become one of the standard texts of high school English classes. It won Cormier the first of many American Library Association awards, and is just as relevant today as it was then.

Like Phil Dick, who posed the same two questions ("what is real? what is human?") throughout his work, Cormier's novels also have common themes linking them together: the questioning of faith, prevalent in the early mainstream novels, carries over into THE CHOCOLATE WAR, where Jerry wonders how his mother could have died and left him; it extends to the more recent OTHER BELLS FOR US TO RING, a 1990 novel for children in which a child waiting for her father to return from WWII prays for a miracle.

While struggling against a power structure represented by peers and adults, Cormier's protagonists often come to recognize truths about themselves. This is most dramatically shown in I AM THE CHEESE, which followed THE CHOCOLATE WAR and established that Cormier was not a flash in the pan. It is the story of Adam Farmer, an amnesiac attempting to recall how he came to the asylum where is being held; when he skips his medication one day and escapes, he learns the truth, for better or for worse. Cormier's first two young adult novels are a hard-hitting combination, and both have been turned into decent films (although they do not end in quite the same way as the novels, particularly THE CHOCOLATE WAR: I strongly recommend you read the novels first). In fact, I AM THE CHEESE has been filmed twice; once under its own title, with an appropriate cameo by Cormier as a small town newspaper editor, and more recently under the title A LAPSE OF MEMORY.

The betrayal of trust is another common theme in Cormier's novels, one which often materializes between young men and women in novels like AFTER THE FIRST DEATH, BEYOND THE CHOCOLATE WAR, FADE, WE ALL FALL DOWN, and the latest novel, TENDERNESS. Perhaps the most beautiful and terrible treatment of this theme is in the 1992 short novel TUNES FOR BEARS TO DANCE TO, where a young boy named Henry befriends an old man (a Holocaust survivor) who is building a model of his old village which was destroyed in the war. When the boy mentions this to the owner of the grocery market where he works part-time, the owner tempts Henry with promises of a better life for him and his family: all he has to do is take a sledgehammer and destroy the old man's model. In just over a hundred pages, Cormier creates a compelling model himself of how something like the Holocaust could have happened.

Finally, Cormier has always had an interest in showing how very little separates the states of mind which we call sanity and mental illness. He is a master of showing the thoughts of his characters, all their worries and insecurities, and in a very real sense, what makes them- and us- tick. This ability is put to particularly good use in FADE, which has been described as "THE CATCHER IN THE RYE meets THE INVISIBLE MAN." It was probably Cormier's largest commercial success since THE CHOCOLATE WAR, appearing in mainstream sections of bookstores and promoted as a suspense or horror novel. The premise is that a thirteen-year-old boy named Paul discovers that he can make himself invisible, and that some of his ancestors had the same ability. At first he thinks this will be a great tool to satisfy his prurient interests, but is shocked and repelled by some of what he finds. As the temptation to use his power grows, not unlike THE HOBBIT, Paul learns about corruption and finds that others would lead him down a very dark road.

"Who has the power?" is the question that Patricia Campbell uses to link Cormier's novels. The Vigils and the Brothers in THE CHOCOLATE WAR have a tug of war for Jerry Renault's soul. Adam Farmer and Barney Snow want nothing more to escape the mental institutions of I AM THE CHEESE and THE BUMBLEBEE FLIES ANYWAY. Kate Forrester and Lori Cranston bargain with their lives in AFTER THE FIRST DEATH and TENDERNESS. Cormier demonstrates repeatedly that we must seize power over our own lives and minds- and risk disturbing the universe- before someone else does; and I cannot think of a better message for a young person- or any person- to take away from his work.

With the possible exception of the children's book OTHER BELLS FOR US TO RING and Patricia Campbell's biography PRESENTING ROBERT CORMIER, you should be able to find all of his work in print from Delacorte ("Dell") press:


Disturbing The Universe There are two prose writers who I hold near and dear to my heart. They are both considered genre writers and have gone unrecognized in mainstream literary circles despite their impressive bodies of work. The first is Philip K. Dick, who struggled his whole life to, well, live and be happy while writing his demons away; after failing to sell some excellent "straight" novels, he turned to Science Fiction and never looked back. The other is Robert Cormier: three years older than Phil, now aged 73, he has been married to his wife Constance for over 50 years. He started his writing career as a reporter, moving on to feature writing and eventually editorial, winning many awards for his columns. His success in career and marriage notwithstanding, his similarities to Phil continue in that he wrote a few mainstream novels before switching to the niche that has made him famous: "Young Adult", commonly abbreviated YA, fiction. Unfortunately, today's typical YA rack is filled with kiddie versions of bland romance novels, movie tie-ins, and mysteries which make up the typical adult fiction section of a bookstore: but there was a time when you could find stories about real people, young and old, coming to terms with a change or realization in life. Even Cormier's mainstream novels had these qualities: NOW AND AT THE HOUR is the moving tale of a man dying from cancer; in A LITTLE RAW ON MONDAY MORNINGS, a young mother trying to support herself learns that she is pregnant from a one-night stand; and TAKE ME WHERE THE GOOD TIMES ARE shows an old man's disturbing escape from his nursing home to a world that he no longer recognizes. In the early 1970's, ten years after the publication of his earlier "adult" novels, he was inspired by his son Peter, who did not want to participate in a fundraising sale- chocolates- at his private school. Cormier wrote a note explaining this to the headmaster, and it was no big deal; but Cormier had worried, what if there had been peer pressure? What if the headmaster had been unscrupulous? From that seed came his most notorious novel, THE CHOCOLATE WAR, in which that nightmare scenario comes true for the meek new boy Jerry Renault. THE CHOCOLATE WAR is a tour de force about the mob mentality and what happens to those who dare "disturb the universe." It does not have a "happy" ending- but it is a great ending, and at the time of its publication it stirred quite a debate. How could we expose our kids to this kind of bleak reality? Shouldn't we protect them from books like this? Patricia Campbell's excellent biography of Cormier answers this question with an introductory passage from Yevgeny Yevtushenko, entitled "Lies": Telling lies to the young is wrong. Proving to them that lies are true is wrong. Telling them that God's in his heaven and all's well with the world is wrong. The young know what you mean. The young are people. Tell them the difficulties can't be counted, and let them see not only what will be but see with clarity these present times. Say obstacles exist they must encounter, sorrow happens, hardship happens. The hell with it. Who never knew the price of happiness will not be happy. Forgive no error you recognize, it will repeat itself, increase, and afterwards our pupils will not forgive in us what we forgave. And so, despite the protests that such a novel was too depressing for teens, THE CHOCOLATE WAR won its own critical victory and has become one of the standard texts of high school English classes. It won Cormier the first of many American Library Association awards, and is just as relevant today as it was then. Like Phil Dick, who posed the same two questions ("what is real? what is human?") throughout his work, Cormier's novels also have common themes linking them together: the questioning of faith, prevalent in the early mainstream novels, carries over into THE CHOCOLATE WAR, where Jerry wonders how his mother could have died and left him; it extends to the more recent OTHER BELLS FOR US TO RING, a 1990 novel for children in which a child waiting for her father to return from WWII prays for a miracle. While struggling against a power structure represented by peers and adults, Cormier's protagonists often come to recognize truths about themselves. This is most dramatically shown in I AM THE CHEESE, which followed THE CHOCOLATE WAR and established that Cormier was not a flash in the pan. It is the story of Adam Farmer, an amnesiac attempting to recall how he came to the asylum where is being held; when he skips his medication one day and escapes, he learns the truth, for better or for worse. Cormier's first two young adult novels are a hard-hitting combination, and both have been turned into decent films (although they do not end in quite the same way as the novels, particularly THE CHOCOLATE WAR: I strongly recommend you read the novels first). In fact, I AM THE CHEESE has been filmed twice; once under its own title, with an appropriate cameo by Cormier as a small town newspaper editor, and more recently under the title A LAPSE OF MEMORY. The betrayal of trust is another common theme in Cormier's novels, one which often materializes between young men and women in novels like AFTER THE FIRST DEATH, BEYOND THE CHOCOLATE WAR, FADE, WE ALL FALL DOWN, and the latest novel, TENDERNESS. Perhaps the most beautiful and terrible treatment of this theme is in the 1992 short novel TUNES FOR BEARS TO DANCE TO, where a young boy named Henry befriends an old man (a Holocaust survivor) who is building a model of his old village which was destroyed in the war. When the boy mentions this to the owner of the grocery market where he works part-time, the owner tempts Henry with promises of a better life for him and his family: all he has to do is take a sledgehammer and destroy the old man's model. In just over a hundred pages, Cormier creates a compelling model himself of how something like the Holocaust could have happened. Finally, Cormier has always had an interest in showing how very little separates the states of mind which we call sanity and mental illness. He is a master of showing the thoughts of his characters, all their worries and insecurities, and in a very real sense, what makes them- and us- tick. This ability is put to particularly good use in FADE, which has been described as "THE CATCHER IN THE RYE meets THE INVISIBLE MAN." It was probably Cormier's largest commercial success since THE CHOCOLATE WAR, appearing in mainstream sections of bookstores and promoted as a suspense or horror novel. The premise is that a thirteen-year-old boy named Paul discovers that he can make himself invisible, and that some of his ancestors had the same ability. At first he thinks this will be a great tool to satisfy his prurient interests, but is shocked and repelled by some of what he finds. As the temptation to use his power grows, not unlike THE HOBBIT, Paul learns about corruption and finds that others would lead him down a very dark road. "Who has the power?" is the question that Patricia Campbell uses to link Cormier's novels. The Vigils and the Brothers in THE CHOCOLATE WAR have a tug of war for Jerry Renault's soul. Adam Farmer and Barney Snow want nothing more to escape the mental institutions of I AM THE CHEESE and THE BUMBLEBEE FLIES ANYWAY. Kate Forrester and Lori Cranston bargain with their lives in AFTER THE FIRST DEATH and TENDERNESS. Cormier demonstrates repeatedly that we must seize power over our own lives and minds- and risk disturbing the universe- before someone else does; and I cannot think of a better message for a young person- or any person- to take away from his work. The Robert Cormier Bibliography With the possible exception of the children's book OTHER BELLS FOR US TO RING and Patricia Campbell's biography PRESENTING ROBERT CORMIER, you should be able to find all of his work in print from Delacorte ("Dell") press: NOW AND AT THE HOUR (1960) A LITTLE RAW ON MONDAY MORNINGS (1963) TAKE ME WHERE THE GOOD TIMES ARE (1965) THE CHOCOLATE WAR (1974) I AM THE CHEESE (1977) AFTER THE FIRST DEATH (1979) 8 PLUS 1 (1980) THE BUMBLEBEE FLIES ANYWAY (1983) BEYOND THE CHOCOLATE WAR (1985) FADE (1988) OTHER BELLS FOR US TO RING (1990) I HAVE WORDS TO SPEND (a collection of newspaper columns, 1991) TUNES FOR BEARS TO DANCE TO (1992) WE ALL FALL DOWN (1993) IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT (1994) TENDERNESS (1997) HEROES (1999) FRENCHTOWN SUMMER (2000)

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