I Am the Cheese

"I Am the Cheese"

First edition
Author Robert Cormier
Country United States
Language English
Genre Young adult novel, crime fiction
Publisher Pantheon Books
Publication date
 1977
Media type Print (hardcover & paperback)
Pages 233 pp (first ed.ition)
ISBN 978-0-394-83462-7
OCLC 2645991
LC Class PZ7.C81634 Iac[1]

I Am the Cheese is a young adult novel by the American writer Robert Cormier, published in American and British hardcover and paperback editions in 1977.

Protagonist Adam Farmer is biking from his home in the fictional town of Monument, Massachusetts (based on Cormier's home town of Leominster, Massachusetts). Interspersed with the story of his journey are memories of Adam's previous life with his parents, his love for prankster Amy Hertz, and the discovery that he is not who he seems to be.

Characters

Title

This quote is a verse from "The Farmer In The Dell", a song that Adam sings during the book:

The cheese stands alone
 The cheese stands alone
 Heigh-ho, the merry-o
 The cheese stands alone

He sings many of these songs throughout the novel. The song contains several characters, each taking someone with them when the farmer leaves, yet the cheese has nobody.

Adam believes that he is the cheese. He is alone in the world, his mother dead and his father missing, and he lives in a hospital. He thinks that he is not wanted anymore. Also, as in other works by Cormier, there is a dual meaning to the title. The words "I am the cheese" may also represent Adam's feelings of entrapment: he is the bait used to lure his parents to their murders.

Another point is that his father had taught him the song, possibly in a way to reinforce the new name, 'Farmer', they had adopted.

Literary significance and criticism

The 1975 novel I Am the Cheese began Cormier's experimentation with first-person, present-tense narration. When Cormier sent the manuscript to the publisher of his previous novel, The Chocolate War, he was confused and depressed, convinced that he was alienating his new young adult audience because of the complex and ambiguous story. However, I Am the Cheese proved to be a success.

Awards and nominations

I Am the Cheese was named to five annual book lists according to the publisher description of the 20th anniversary edition.[1] It won the 1997 Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association as the best English-language children's book that did not win a major award when it was originally published twenty years earlier. It is named for the mythical bird phoenix, which is reborn from its ashes, to suggest the book's rise from obscurity.[2]

Film adaptations

I Am the Cheese was released as a movie in 1983, directed by Robert Jiras and starring Robert MacNaughton, Hope Lange, Don Murray, Lee Richardson, Cynthia Nixon and Robert Wagner. The screenplay was written by David Lange (Hope Lange's brother) and Robert Jiras.[3]

Publication history

WorldCat libraries report holding Danish (1986), Catalan (1987), Spanish (1998), Chinese, Polish, and Korean-language editions.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 "I am the cheese" (first edition). Library of Congress Catalog Record. Retrieved 2012-12-13.
  2. ↑ "Phoenix Award Brochure 2012". Children's Literature Association. Retrieved 2012-12-13.
    See also the current homepage "Phoenix Award".
  3. ↑ Maslin, Janet (November 11, 1983). "Movie Review: I Am The Cheese (1983)". The New York Times.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Formats and Editions of I am the cheese". WorldCat. Retrieved 2012-12-13.
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