Cormier has written a novel of psychological suspense [in "I Am the Cheese"]. He is a fine technician and this is an absorbing, even a brilliant job. The book is assembled in mosaic fashion: a tiny chip here, a chip there, and suddenly the outline of a face dimly begins to take shape. Everything is related to something else; everything builds and builds to a fearsome climax. At the end the boy discovers that he is indeed the cheese—the bait around which the rats gather. Little can he do about it, except react the way God and Freud have provided. The ending is grim indeed.
It is not that "I Am the Cheese" is in any way sensational, sadistic or anything like that. Cormier merely has the knack of making horror out of the ordinary, as the masters of suspense writing know how to do. The story moves along quietly enough. The bicycling adventures of the boy are the kind of adventures anybody today could experience. Where the tension enters is in the mind of the boy, who (as it turns out) is faced with a situation with which no child should have to cope.
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