By ROBERT CORMIER (Delacorte Press; 1988)

It feels wrong to criticize a novel for being too ambitious, but this novel is too ambitious.  Written by the late YA maestro Robert Cormier, FADE was published as a YA and adult novel, and functions equally well as both.  It’s also superbly written, meaning that even if it does overreach it’s an enjoyable read—but overreach it does.

The title refers to invisibility, a “talent” that resides in the family of one Paul Moreaux.  The very Stephen King-like first half (King, unsurprisingly, provided an enthusiastic cover blurb) is told from Paul’s 13-year-old point of view.  It’s then that he, living in a small upstate New York town circa 1938, learns about “the fade.”  It allows him a glimpse into the town’s hidden life, which includes treachery and incest.  It’s not long before Paul finds himself wishing he didn’t have the fade, as it becomes burdensome learning about things he’d rather not know, and brings out a dark side.  Paul, in short, enacts a psychological arc foreseen by Plato and H.G. Wells, who theorized that a rational and intelligent individual granted the power of invisibility—i.e. the ability to commit injustices without consequence—will inevitably turn to evil.

Around the book’s halfway point the narrative voice unexpectedly shifts to that of Susan Roger, a distant cousin of Paul who’s writing in the 1980s.  Paul, she reveals, went on to become a famous novelist and is now deceased, with Susan discovering an unpublished manuscript, comprising what we’ve just read, through her employer, who was Paul’s literary agent.  Aside from filling us in on what became of Paul in his later years, this portion of FADE accomplishes very little, especially since Cormier quickly switches back to Paul’s POV.

In the second of Paul’s recountings he’s a bit older than he was previously, and obsessed with finding a relative bearing the fade.  The object of his search is an abused boy named Ozzie, whose early years are filled in via another viewpoint shift, describing Ozzie’s tortured upbringing in a small town in Maine (yet another Stephen King connection).  Ozzie allows his darker nature to take hold very quickly, and embarks on a rampage of killing and destruction.  Cue another viewpoint shift back to Paul, who tracks down Ozzie for a fateful, and bloody, showdown.

If all these viewpoint shifts sound chaotic and unnecessary, that’s because they are.  The material works best as an intimate portrait of isolation and apprehension, and not the multi-generational epic Cormier tried to fashion it into.  It is, however, consistently readable and entertaining, which for many readers (including Stephen King, evidently) will likely be satisfactory enough.