I am The Cheese

Book Report: I Am the Cheese

By Robert Cormier

‘Imagine discovering that your whole life has been a fiction, your identity altered, and a new family history created. Suddenly nothing is as it once seemed; you can trust no one, maybe not even yourself. It is exactly this revelation that turns 14-year-old Adam Farmer's life upside down. As he tries to ascertain who he really is, Adam encounters a past, present, and future too horrible to contemplate. Suspense builds as the fragments of the story are assembled--a missing father, government corruption, espionage--until the shocking conclusion shatters the fragile mosaic.’

I started reading this book somewhere between Brisbane and Rockhampton, because I’d finished ‘Angel’s Rest’ and had no more books of my own. Caroline had just finished this one and handed it over, so I read it.

I enjoyed it, and loved speculating about what was happening, especially towards the end. In alternating chapters, Cormier switches between present-tense first person narrative of his young, mysterious protag, Adam, and documentary-style conversations between ‘A’ and ‘T’—Adam and a psychiatrist. Each chapter lends more understanding to Adam and his journey, both during his bike ride and his therapy sessions. It’s the slow unraveling that hooks the reader and keeps them reading, and guessing.

While some of Cormier’s descriptive phrases may be now tired and unoriginal by today’s standards (‘the wind like a snake slithering up my sleeves’), he did an outstanding job illustrating character and emotion.

‘Something hits my arm as I eat and I look down at the floor and see where the piece of popcorn has landed. Another piece arrives, barely missing the chowder. Like in school, when the wise guys threw spitballs. I don’t look at the troublemakers and I concentrate on my chowder. I blow on the chowder to cool it off. I remove my father’s package from the other chair at the table and put it on my lap. For safekeeping. I hear the popcorn guys giggle. You can tell them a mile away, the wise guys. I had recognized them as soon as I stepped into the place. They are everywhere in the world, in schools and offices, in theaters and factories, in stores and hospitals.’

The correct interpretation of this book is something to be discussed and debated, and I like that. It’s the kind of story that will offer something slightly different to each reader, and I like that too. Caroline and I talked about it and neither of us are convinced we are right, as the other’s speculations are just as plausible as our own. This book is an excellent model to learn from, both as a writer and as a person, and blends both introspection and forward mystery as no other book I’ve read.

Four out of Five stars for emotional realism and for not giving the reader all the answers