One of the things I related to most as a teenager reading Robert Cormier was the sense of isolation that permeated his stories, the very alone-ness of a character like Jerry Renault in The Chocolate War; a sense that for every choice we make, no matter for whom we're making it, we face the consequences of that choice alone. And in Cormier's books, these are no light consequences. They murdered him, reads that book's memorable opening line. As a fearful, as-yet-closeted gay teenager, living in an at-the-time shattered family, Cormier's taut, suspenseful novel had a special resonance with me.

In Cormier's conflicted 1998 novel Heroes, Francis Cassavant is a young man without a face. After forging his birth certificate to enlist in the army as a minor to fight in World War II, Francis falls on a grenade, saving the lives of several of his fellow soldiers, but returning home with "caves" for nostrils, raw, bloody grafts of skin for cheeks, and a formless mouth. Back in his hometown now, no one really recognizes him from before - they only see the returning veteran - a hero - and he covers his nightmarish visage with a bandage and scarf, so as not to frighten the passers-by. But that's okay. Francis knows who he really is - a despicable coward (or is he?). Furthermore, he's set himself a mission of redemption (or is it just revenge?): Larry LaSalle must die. And for now, for Francis, anonymity is key.

Rarely has Cormier's portrait of a young man isolated in the world been so complete and all-encompassing. Faceless and nameless, Cassavant exists in his town as a silent, ghostly figure, with a frightful singularity of purpose - to find the man who had been Francis's (and indeed the whole town's) hero even before the war, and avenge a crime no one else had seen committed. So, when, at the local tavern, Francis's fellow war-vets raise their glasses to their Larry LaSalle, Francis does the same. And when they raise their glasses to Francis, he accepts the toast modestly, reminding himself that, in one crucial moment, he had failed, paralyzed with fear.

Brief and tense, Heroes is a weaving of happy reminiscences of a lost adolescence, and horrific tunnel visions of paralysing guilt and anger; hazy soft-focus days of ping pong championships and Saturday matinees with his girl Nicole are intercut with the looks on children's faces as they give Francis a wide berth on the street, or ask him if he's "the boogeyman", and thoughts of homicide - and suicide. Writing in the first person, Cormier has created a voice for Francis that is spare and thoughtful and often brutally unforgiving - not just of Larry, but even more, unforgiving of himself.

What emerges is a meditation not just on heroism and cowardice, but also on the people we call heroes, the way a label like that can erase a person's true face; the way the word "hero" works like make-up to cover the frailties, the imperfections, and the wrongdoings of the one it's applied to. But even beyond all that, at the heart of the story is forgiveness - how it gives us back what we think we've lost. If the story is ultimately sort of anticlimactic, it's also rigorously honest - even, dare I say, optimistic. Which is something, coming from Robert Cormier. That's not to say he ever settles for facile ironies here, or a lazy happy ending; but Heroes is a hopeful story, and if it feels weighty and dark as it opens, there's a lightness that emerges out of the story's various confrontations. A lovely, confounding book.

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MORE ROBERT CORMIER:

The Chocolate War (1974)

Beyond the Chocolate War (1985)

Fade (1988)

Other Bells for Us to Ring (1990)

We All Fall Down (1991)

Tunes for Bears to Dance To (1992)

In the Middle of the Night (1995)

Tenderness (1997)

Frenchtown Summer (1999)

The Rag and Bone Shop (2001)




Recommended: Yes