In The Middle Of The Night

(Paperback)

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Description

On Hallowe'en years ago, 16-year-old Denny's father was involved in a tragic accident that killed 22 children. And it seems one of those children can't forget. Denny wants to be like other kids his age, but he's not allowed to drive or answer the phone and his family moves so often he's always the new kid in school. Then there are the phone calls: every year, they wake Denny up in the middle of the night. And every year, Denny's father calmly answers. But this year it's different. It's been 25 years since the accident. When Denny defies his parents one afternoon and answers the phone, he finds himself drawn into a highly-charged relationship with the mystery caller, someone who haunts his days and nights and threatens a deadly revenge. In this chilling novel, which examines the consequences of a young man's rebellion against his father's past, Robert Cormier once again shows himself to be a master of suspense.

Reviews

Praise for Robert Cormier's books: "A tour de force" TES "Compulsive" The Observer "A novel you are unlikely to forget" TES

Author Bio

Robert Cormier was of French Canadian extraction; his family settled in the USA around the turn of the century. His Roman Catholicism, he said, had been throughout his life boon and burden, giving me moments of great illumination and moments of shadows, when I didnt think I was doing good enough. He guessed (correctly) that this shows in his writing. He lived in New England all his life and, though he loved to travel, would never want to leave his central Massachusetts home. When he was eleven, his teacher, who was a nun, read a poem by him and asked, Do you want to be a writer The young Cormier decided this was just what he did want. His early writing experience included two years of composing radio commercials, some of the hardest and most hateful writing I did, but some of the most benefical too the discipline was amazing. By his early twenties he was working in newspapers and had already published short stories. It was not until 1963 that he published his first adult novel. There were to be two more before he produced The Chocolate War, the success of which enabled Cormier to become a full-time writer. His three subsequent novels, all well received, tackled other difficult subjects. When I am writing, he said Im only conscious that Im a storyteller first. Im interested in creating real people, dramatic situations that will keep the reader turing pages. Then, if I can say heres the chance for me to explore ideas like the dehumanization of society in I am the Cheese, where Adam becomes a cipher great. I don t think of myself as a thematic writer, but as a storyteller. If they dont work as stories, then no one will read them, so the message would get lost anyway. Robert Cormier died on 2nd November 2000.