Robert Cormier

Cormier and his wife, Constance Senay, ‘Connie’, have four children whose teenage lives often influenced his writing.

Though his works are devoid of slang or teenage lexis, the speech patterns were heavily drawn from what he heard through the conversations his children had with their friends.

He passed away due to lung cancer.

Robert Cormier was the second of eight children born to Lucien Joseph and Irma M. Cormier. As a child, he liked reading books, staying at home. He began writing when he was in first grade in school.

By the time he reached 7th grade, he was sure that he wanted to become a writer and eventually his first short story, ‘The Little Things That Count’ was published in ‘The Sign’, a Catholic magazine, while he was still a freshman at Fitchburg State College. One of his professors sent the story for publishing without Cormier’s knowledge.

Cormier began his career by writing scripts for radio commercials. He worked for 31 years as a newspaper reporter and a columnist for the ‘Worcester Telegram’ and ‘Gazette’ and ‘The Fitchburg Sentinel’, winning three major awards.

His first novel ‘Now and At the Hour’, was published in in 1960 which earned him great critical appreciation and kick-started his literary career.

‘A Little Raw on Monday Mornings’, his second work of fiction, was published in 1963 and a couple of years later he published ‘Take Me Where the Good Times Are’, before quitting journalism to become a full-time writer. ‘

He wrote and published his first novel for teenagers, ‘The Chocolate War’, in 1974. With its storyline and language, he quickly developed a reputation of being a brutally plain, uncompromising writer who dealt with morbid themes pertaining to the problems faced by teenagers, including anarchism and sexuality.

He produced some of his best works exploring the dark side of human nature, which are reflected in publications such as ‘Fade’ and ‘We All Fall Down’.

‘The Chocolate War’ was first published in 1974 and received mixed reviews at that time. Most of its content was frequently censored and although critics consider it one of the best young adult novels of all time, it was banned in many schools ‘for sexual content, offensive language, and violence’.

‘I Am the Cheese’, published in 1975, made it to the five annual book lists and was adapted for a film later. In 1997, the publication won the ‘Phoenix Award’.