ROBERT CORMIER
1925-2000
Robert Cormier (pronounced kor-MEER) lived all his life in
Leominster, Massachusetts, a small town in the north-central part
of the state, where he grew up as part of a close, warm community
of French Canadian immigrants. His wife, Connie, also from
Leominster, still lives in the house where they raised their three
daughters and one son–all adults now. They never saw a reason to
leave. “There are lots of untold stories right here on Main
Street,” Cormier once said.
A newspaper reporter and columnist for 30 years (working for the
Worcester Telegram and Gazette and the Fitchburg Sentinel), Cormier
was often inspired by news stories. What makes his works unique is
his ability to make evil behavior understandable, though, of
course, still evil. “I’m very much interested in intimidation,” he
told an interviewer from School Library Journal. “And the way
people manipulate other people. And the obvious abuse of
authority.” All of these themes are evident in his young adult
classic and best-known book, The Chocolate War. A 15-year-old fan
of his said, “You always write from inside the person.”
Cormier traveled the world, from Australia (where he felt
particularly thrilled by putting his hand in the Indian Ocean) and
New Zealand to most of the countries in Europe, speaking at
schools, colleges, and universities and to teacher and librarian
associations. He visited nearly every state in the nation. While
Cormier loved to travel, he said many times that he also loved
returning to his home in Leominster.
Cormier was a practicing Catholic and attended parochial school,
where in seventh grade, one of his teachers discovered his ability
to write. But he said he had always wanted to be a writer: “I can’t
remember a time when I wasn’t trying to get something down on
paper.” His first poems were published in the Leominster Daily
Enterprise, and his first professional publication occurred while
he was a freshman at Fitchburg State College. His professor,
Florence Conlon, sent his short story, without his knowledge, to
The Sign, a national Catholic magazine. The story, titled “The
Little Things That Count,” sold for $75.
Cormier’s first work as a writer was at radio station WTAG in
Worcester, MA, where he wrote scripts and commercials from 1946 to
1948. In 1948, he began his award-winning career as a newspaperman
with the Worcester Telegram, first in its Leominster office and
later in its Fitchburg office. He wrote a weekly human-interest
column, “A Story from the Country,” for that newspaper.
In 1955, Cormier joined the staff of the Fitchburg Sentinel, which
later became the Fitchburg-Leominster Sentinel and Enterprise, as
the city hall and political reporter. He later served as wire and
associate editor and wrote a popular twice-weekly column under the
pseudonym John Fitch IV. The column received the national K.R.
Thomason Award in 1974 as the best human-interest column written
that year. That same year, he was honored by the New England
Associated Press Association for having written the best news story
under pressure of deadline. He left newspaper work in 1978 to
devote all his time to writing.
Robert Cormier’s first novel, Now and at the Hour, was published in
1960. Inspired by his father’s death, the novel drew critical
acclaim and was featured by Time magazine for five weeks on its
“Recommended Reading” list. It was followed in 1963 by A Little Raw
on Monday Mornings and in 1965 by Take Me Where the Good Times Are,
also critically acclaimed. The author was hailed by the Newark
Advocate as being “in the first rank of American Catholic
novelists.”
In 1974, Cormier published The Chocolate War, the novel that is
still a bestseller a quarter century after its publication.
Instantly acclaimed, it was also the object of censorship attempts
because of its uncompromising realism. In a front-page review in a
special children’s issue of The New York Times Book Review, it was
described as “masterfully structured and rich in theme,” and it
went on to win countless awards and honors, was taught in schools
and colleges throughout the world, and was translated into more
than a dozen languages. I Am the Cheese followed in 1977 and After
the First Death in 1979.
These three books established Cormier as a master of the young
adult novel. In 1991, the Young Adult Services Division of the
American Library Association presented him with the Margaret A.
Edwards Award, citing the trio of books as “brilliantly crafted and
troubling novels that have achieved the status of classics in young
adult literature.”
In 1982, Cormier was honored by the National Council of Teachers of
English and its Adolescent Literature Assembly (ALAN) for his
“significant contribution to the field of adolescent literature”
and for his “innovative creativity.”
8 Plus 1, an anthology of short stories that have appeared in such
publications as the Saturday Evening Post, The Sign, and Redbook,
was published in 1980. In later years, many of the stories in the
collection, notably “The Moustache,” “President Cleveland, Where
Are You?” and “Mine on Thursdays,” appeared in anthologies and
school textbooks. The collection also received the World of Reading
Readers’ Choice Award, sponsored by Silver Burdett & Ginn,
especially notable because young readers voted for Cormier to
receive the prize.
I Have Words to Spend, a collection of his newspaper and magazine
columns, was published in 1991, assembled and edited by his wife,
Connie.
Robert Cormier’s other novels include The Bumblebee Flies Anyway,
1983; 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;
Heroes, 1998; and Frenchtown Summer, 1999. This novel won the Los
Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction in April 2000. All
his novels have won critical praise and honors.
In the Middle of the Night and Tenderness were short-listed for the
Carnegie Medal in England, and Heroes received a “Highly Commended”
citation for that same award, unique honors because the Carnegie is
traditionally awarded to a British book.
Cormier's novels have frequently come under attack by censorship
groups because they are uncompromising in their depictions of the
problems young people face each day in a turbulent world. Teachers
and librarians have been quick to point out that his novels are
eminently teachable, valuable, and moral. His novels are taught in
hundreds of schools and in adolescent literature courses in
colleges and universities.
Though many of his books are described as written for young adults,
in fact people of all ages read and enjoy Cormier’s work. His
themes of the ordinariness of evil and what happens when good
people stand by and do nothing are treated seriously, and he never
provides the easy comfort of a happy ending. Cormier’s gripping
stories explore some of the darker corners of the human psyche, but
always with a moral focus and a probing intelligence that compel
readers to examine their own feelings and ethical beliefs.
In an interview last year, Cormier was asked if he had accomplished
what he set out to do at the beginning of his writing career. He
answered with characteristic humility: “Oh, yes. My dream was to be
known as a writer and to be able to produce at least one book that
would be read by people. That dream came true with the publication
of my first novel–and all the rest has been a sweet bonus. All I’ve
ever wanted to do, really, was to write.” That writing has left the
world a legacy of wonderful books, a body of work that will endure.
"Vicious and violent mob cruelty in a boys' prep school is not a
new theme but Cormier makes it compellingly immediate...Mature
young readers will respect the uncompromising ending ..."-- Kirkus,
starred review
"Masterfully structured and rich in theme; the action is well
crafted, well timed, suspenseful."-- The New York Times Book Review
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