I Am the Cheese

Cormier, Robert. I Am the Cheese. New York: Knopf, 1977. 233 p. eBook.

 

Adam Farmer is on a frantic bike ride to reach his father. His father is in the hospital in Rutterburg, Vermont, and fourteen-year-old Adam knows that he must reach him despite the dangers.  Each rotation of his bicycle tires brings him farther from what he knows and into a world that terrifies Adam.  As Adam struggles to continue on his journey, the reader soon learns that things are not exactly as they seem.  In fact, as Adam’s life crumbles around him, readers are left wondering who to believe and if there is anyone to trust.

I Am the Cheese can easily be regarded as two novels in one. The first novel describes Adam while he battles against environment, devious strangers, and his own mental demons to get to his father.  The second novel, written in transcript form, details methodical questioning designed to make Adam remember.  As Adam begins to recall his past, the reader becomes exposed to a sinister history that could not be predicted.

Truly the strength of Robert Cormier’s work is in his ability to leave a reader guessing.  As Adam forges on his bicycle journey, readers become engrossed in the details he reveals about his life with his parents.  And as the transcripts reveal more of Adam’s past that has been locked away in his mind, readers are floored by the unwitting deceit of such an unreliable narrator.  If there were to be a weakness of this work, it would be that the ending seemed to come quickly and almost too tidily.  Adam and his reader are going helter-skelter through his journey and sudden slam into the conclusion.  The impact is enough to bruise, but not enough to have regretted the journey.

For a young adult, I Am the Cheese fits perfectly into the question-everything mentality that is a rite of passage for so many.  For many, Adam is the first unreliable narrator who did not intentionally mean to lead readers astray.  For a young adult reader, it may be enough to eye their parents wearily for a few days. Maybe even enough to drag out the family photo albums…just to be safe.