In The Middle Of The Night (2002) - Plot & Excerpts
"Nightmares ended when you woke up. Guilt never ended, worst in the dark of night but with you all the time, day or night." —In the Middle of the Night, P. 86 Robert Cormier never bothers with quaint sayings about how everything will be okay if we just keep a positive attitude, and the only one who can derail our life is ourselves. His shocking, sobering novels demonstrate quite convincingly that other people can mess us up for life through no fault of our own, that misguided rage and a lust for vengeance can reach laterally and knock innocent people off their paths, whether we like to admit that fact or not. Not that there's no deeper agreement in Cormier's books with the firm belief that we decide our own fate by choosing either to move on from our griefs or embrace them like a burning coal and allow the fire to sear our consciences. For In the Middle of the Night, it's just such a decision that drives the plot, and sets off all of the horrors that are to come. A major trauma can really be devastating to the course of one's life. How much so for a young girl attending a free charity magic show at an ambient old theater with her little brother, when the rickety upper deck caves in and buries most of the children in attendance? On the night that the balcony at the old-fashioned Globe theater collapsed, killing twenty-two innocent kids and scarring the town's psyche for decades to come, life ground to a halt for more than just the twenty-two who actually met their deaths. A trauma like that can sometimes end the lives of the survivors as effectively as it does for the dead, crippled children growing up bitter and blaming the people in charge for the mess that their life has become, and people in charge wracked with second-guessing and unbearable guilt as to what they possibly could have done differently that might have saved lives. It's always the second-guessing that gets us worst, I think, digging into the flesh of our soul like jagged barbs and ripping away chunks of who we are, setting into our skin deeper and deeper if we let it happen. That's how some people lose their way in life, second-guessing themselves right off the edge of sanity. For nearly twenty-five years after the accident that changed his entire existence, the tragedy that furious family members of the dead victims blamed him for and many still believe was his responsibility, Denny's father has quietly taken the full brunt of their collective and individual rage. He's never defended himself against their verbal barrages or argued back, never made excuses or tried to rationalize his part in the morbid disaster that took place when he was a teenager, and Denny wonders why his father is so accepting of the abuse. Their family has had to move several times to get away from the hateful outpourings of people who let their emotions get the better of them and lead them to pile on the back of the favorite scapegoat, regardless of whether or not they know enough about the accident to judge if their anger is correctly placed. And every October, phone calls begin at Denny's house in the middle of the night, and Denny's father simply picks up the phone and listens to whatever the person on the other end of the line is saying, before hanging up when the call is complete. It's all very mysterious to Denny. Getting trapped in this phone "game" of his father's was never Denny's intention, yet somehow he finds himself right in the middle of the enigmatic revenge dance when he decides that he wants to stir up some intrigue in his life and no longer obey the strict imperative of the household that he is never, under any circumstances, to pick up the phone when it rings. The most venomous rages that hide in a human heart sometimes will not die (or even fade) with time, and the situation that Denny has stepped into is a crazy and potentially lethal one. More innocent blood could now be shed as a result of the accident at the theater that happened twenty-five years ago, and the silent suffering in the face of persecution that Denny's father has endured for so long could be nothing compared to what he stands to lose now. How do you decide when enough is enough, and it's time to let go of the past and try to redirect your life? That's a hugely important question, and the answer is undoubtedly different for every person and every situation that they face. Contrary to popular sentiment, I believe that fighting for the past can be a very good and productive activity, even if it takes a long time to achieve the desired result. So, how do we know when it's time to pull the plug on our most important battles for the past and start moving forward? We don't, really, and so we error in this regard way more often than we make the correct call, I would guess. We have to make the right decision based on our own common sense, but what if that sense has been warped by trauma at a young age, not allowing us the benefit of a rational perspective on what's worth fighting for and what struggles will just cost us our emotional well-being? Random bad things happen in people's lives, so that most of the time we can't even tell who's right or wrong in the most important situations. We just have to try to do our best and attempt to be understanding of the struggles that everyone else is facing, perhaps ones that are even worse than ours. There's so much to get out of this book. What does revenge really even mean? What does it look like in real life, and is there ever an outcome to seeking it that looks anything remotely like the romanticized vision that we have while dreaming how sweet it could be? Why do our minds try to trick us into throwing our lives away on ridiculous games when in reality there's more for us to live for than we even know, more potential goodness coming up ahead in the next days, weeks, years than we could ever guess at or add up and quantify because the twists are too unpredictable for us to see ahead of time? Why do we vacate the good things we could have right now for the flighty fantasy of a possibility, a whispered phantom of a suggested opportunity, the silky voice in our ear that promises us more when we already have the full package in front of us offering the chance for real happiness without strings attached? Is it right to resist the vented rage of others upon us when they blame us for something we never intended to do, something that in all likelihood was not even our fault? Does it say more for our personal character if we stay silent and absorb the abuse or push back hard and refuse to give our assailants the satisfaction of berating us, continuing to claim the innocence that may be ours in the face of the masses who will only ever believe that we are bad? Does it really help honor the victims if we give up our right to defend ourselves and wordlessly accept the role of whipping boy for people who don't know where else to unleash the fury of their blind condemnation? Again, the answer to all of these questions is: I don't know. But this story certainly did cause me to wrestle with every one of these issues, and more. All in all, In the Middle of the Night reminds me a lot of one of Robert Cormier's other acclaimed suspense novels, We All Fall Down. I actually think that this one wasn't as eerie or spellbinding in the intensity of its delivery as that earlier book, but I might say that it is more thoughtfully written, and I would give it the same two and a half stars. So much of the value to In the Middle of the Night comes by way of the knife's edge that Robert Cormier constantly makes us walk, with that feeling that something awful is always right around the corner. Most of the time the awful things don't happen, but the awareness of the possibility is enough to keep us on the edge of our seats until the last sentence of the final page has been read. With Robert Cormier, you know you're not safe until the moment when the text stops and the story has definitely ended. As consistently great an author as Robert Cormier is, I would probably place In the Middle of the Night in the lower half of his works, but that is much more a tribute to the greatness he has achieved in his writing career than to any shortcomings in this novel. After having read only one or two of Cormier's books I realized that I felt a powerful need to eventually read everything that he has ever written, and I urge others who have also fallen under his unique spell to make time to experience In the Middle of the Night on their way to reading all of his books. It is a journey worth taking.
Nightmares ended when you woke up. Guilt never ended, worst in the dark of night but with you all the time, day or night.After reading the great I Am The Cheese, I knew I had to read more of Robert Cormier, who's slowly becoming one of my favorite authors. His fiction is unrelenting, demanding and bleak, often tragic. His characters are driven by desperation - to understand themselves, seek solace of personal revenge. Although short, his books pack a great punch - his resolves often aren't pretty and can be a shock to younger readers who are accustomed to sanitized and simplified novels. I think he's underrated and should be better known.In the Middle of the Night is a late Cormier (1195), and employs a similar themes to I Am The Cheese. I tells the story of Denny Colbert, a sixteen year old teenager who just wants to have a life like all other kids - be popular, have good friends, a part time job, get a driver's license. But Denny's family is constantly moving from town to town, Denny is always the new kid on the block and at school. It doesn't help that his family is very restrictive - his father forbid's him to even pick up the telephone, which begins to ring regularly around October, even in the middle of the night. But one day, alone in their new house in a small Massachusetts town, Denny disobeys his father and picks the phone up - and is drawn into consequences of what has happened many years ago, and continues to haunt his family.The main themes of In The Middle of the Night are guilt and penance, absolution and forgiveness. Unlike I Am The Cheese, this book features several different points of view, showing the reader how different characters view the same event. It's a great way to show how the characters are perceived by society and why that is so, and how the even continues to influence and shape their lives, along with lives of those who have not been involved in it. This is a very dark and pessimistic book, populated by characters who are either resigned or obsessed - almost as if it was a book of the dead and they were the ghost that haunts it. But the ghost which haunts them all is the long shadow of what happened, which never let go - or more aptly, could never be let go.I'd recommend this to anyone interested in discovering Cormier - thoght not as twisted and unforgettable as I Am The Cheese it has his stamp of quality, and I look forward to reading more of his works and reviewing them.
What do You think about In The Middle Of The Night (2002)?
On Halloween night, eight years before Denny was born, his father was in an accident at his place of work. It was horrible and that accident has haunted Denny's father for the past 25 years. Every year phone calls begin in October and Denny has been told to never answer the phone. But he's sixteen now and he decides one day to do what he's not supposed to: answer the phone.I've only read two books by Robert Cormier, After the First Death and Tenderness. It's been about ten years since I've read both books and so I can't remember every detail about them, but both have stayed with me. I've thought of both books a lot over the years and plans to one day reread both of them. So I decided to try another book by Robert Cormier and thought this one sounded interesting.For me, this one took a little bit to get into. The story is interesting, a little suspenseful. I liked the main character, but wouldn't say I felt that I could completely connect with him. It was a good book, not a favorite, but an enjoyable read nonetheless.
—Eden
Denny is being harassed because of the "sins of the father", even though his father was truly innocent. People effected by an event 25 years ago, in which Denny's father was also effected, decided that he should be blamed. Therefore, the father receives phone calls in the middle of the night, and those calls are anything but nice. Now that Denny is 16 years-old, he has begun receiving a call from one of the survivors of the horrible accident 25 years ago, and he wants to deal with the call in a totally different manner than his father.Cormier is well-known for writing "odd" books, and this one fits nicely into that category. I like his writing style and use of descriptive language, but his stories usually have an unusual twist to them. There's nothing wrong with that, however. I was pleased to see that his use of profanity was minute in In the Middle of the Night.
—Lisa Lewis
This was published in 1996 when the Internet was in its infancy, but the themes of this story are probably even more relevant today than they were then. In 1996 it was only the true nutter who made up a separate identity at the end of a series of nuisance calls whereas today, online, anyone can be who they want to be.I don't think this was one of Cormier's best books, partly because it was a little too obvious what was going on from about midway through. On the other hand, it took me longer than it should have to work out the point of view switches in the beginning.
—Lynley
