"I Am the Cheese"
Laurel Leaf edition cover
Author	Robert Cormier
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Young adult novel, Children's novel
Publisher	Pantheon Books
Publication date	1977 (September 1, 1991 reprint)
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	234 pp (first edition, hardback) & 214 pp (paperback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-394-83462-3 (first edition, hardback) & ISBN 0-440-94060-5 (paperback edition)
OCLC Number	2645991
LC Classification	PZ7.C81634 Iac

I Am the Cheese is a novel written by American author Robert Cormier and first published in 1977. It is categorised under young adult literature.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Characters 3 Explanation of the novel's title 4 Literary significance and criticism 5 Awards and nominations 6 Film adaptations 7 Release details 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Plot summary

The book starts off with the central character, Adam Farmer, riding his bicycle to Rutterburg, Vermont with a package for his father. As he travels, he starts to remember the events leading to the end of the book. These same memories are also being filled out in psychiatric interviews that occur at an undetermined time throughout the book.

One day he receives a phone call from his girlfriend, Amy Hertz. She says that her father met a reporter from the town Adam supposedly was born in, and the reporter had never heard of any "Farmers" in the town. This gave Adam suspicions, and he began spying on his parents. He finds two birth certificates: one with his birthday listed as February 14 (Valentines Day) and another with his birthday as July 14 (Bastille Day). This aroused his suspicions further. He starts looking around the house and then his father tells him the truth.

Adam Farmer's real name is Paul Delmonte. His father had been an investigative reporter who uncovered a large conspiracy and testified against it. After several attempts on his life, he and his family entered the Department of Re-identification. Adam had not been told about his past for his entire life.

Later, they received a phone call from their protector, Mr. Grey, saying that they may have been discovered. They go on "vacation" to hide. One day while on vacation, their "protection" attacked them, killing Adam's mother instantly. Adam survived, and heard that his father was being pursued, but was not sure he had been found and killed at first. He was placed in a hospital where he is interrogated every year by a doctor named Brint. Each time he ends up forgetting everything and begins the journey again.

Adam is not biking to Rutterberg at all; he is in fact going in circles in a mental health facility and all the people he encounters on the way to Rutterberg are actually the patients and workers there. The sessions with Brint in the novel represent the third time he has been questioned. The final interview ends with a list of several possible outcomes, but none bode well for Adam: questioning him until he dies or terminating him.

The chapters alternate between first-person, present tense, during Adam's journey, and third-person, past tense, during the psychiatric interviews.

[edit] Characters

• Adam Farmer (Paul Delmonte) – Protagonist
• David Farmer (Anthony Delmonte) - Adam's father, insurance agent and former Newspaperman
• Louise Farmer/Delmonte - Adam's mother
• Amy Hertz - Adam's girlfriend
• Brint - Adam's questioner and "guide"and pyschotherapist
• Mr. Grey - Agent in the Witness Protection Program
• Arthur - a fat man who overlooks Hookset and tells Adam who had his bike
• Dr.Dupont - a kindly doctor who oversees mental hospital Adam, where he is a patient.
• Junior Varney - the boy that steals Adam's bike while in Hookset, who Arthur tells Adam about
• Whipper - the boy Adam met while in Carver, who picked on Adam several times

[edit] Explanation of the novel's title

This quote is a verse from the song that Adam sings during the song:

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

He sings many of these songs throughout the novel.

Adam is the cheese, he believes; he is alone in the world, both parents dead, living in a hospital. He thinks that he is alone and 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: himself being the bait used to lure his parents into their murders.^{[original research?]}

[edit] 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 off 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 due to the complex and ambiguous story.

However, I Am the Cheese proved to be a success.

[edit] Awards and nominations

• Phoenix Award

[edit] Film adaptations

In 1983, I Am the Cheese was made into a movie 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.^[1]

[edit] Release details

• 1977, USA, Pantheon ISBN 0-394-83462-3, Pub date ? ? 1977, hardback (First edition)
• 1977, USA, Laurel-Leaf Library ISBN 0-440-94060-5, Pub date ? ? 1977, ? binding

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• SparkNotes novel analysis
• Robert Cormier at Random House Books
• I Am the Cheese at the Internet Movie Database

v • d • e Published novels by Robert Cormier Now and At the Hour (1960)  • Ms. Riley is a Bad Teacher (1962)  • A Little Raw on Monday Mornings (1963)  • Take Me Where the Good Times Are (1965)  • The Chocolate War (1974)  • I Am the Cheese (1977)  • After the First Death (1979)  • 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 (1998)  • Heroes (1998)  • The Rag and Bone Shop (2001)