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Robert Cormier has always lived in Leominster, Massachusetts, a small city in the north-central part of the state. He and his wife, Connie, also from Leominster, still live in the house where they educated their three daughters and one son - all adults now - and they see no reason to leave. "There are lots of untold stories right here on Main Street," Cormier says. Although he has always lived in one place, Cormier loves to travel. He has been a newspaper reporter and columnist for 30 years (working for the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, and the Fitchburg Sentinel). Cormier is sometimes inspired by news stories.
Cormier is a practising Catholic who attended parochial school, where in seventh grade, one of his teachers discovered his ability to write. "I can't really remember a time, when I haven't been a writer...Reading and writing..
...were the two great escapes of my life and I suppose they still are," says Robert Cormier. He has written 16 books - 15 of them fiction and one a collection of his newspaper columns. Though these books are sometimes described as written for young adults, in fact Cormier has readers of all ages.
His themes of the ordinariness of evil and what happens when good people stand by and do nothing are treated seriously, and he does not provide the easy comfort of happy endings. He always believes in hope. The books by him: Now and at the Hour (1960), 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), Eight Plus One - Stories (1980), The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (1983), Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), Fade (1988), Other Bells for Us Ring (1990), We All Fall down (1991), Tunes for Bears to Dance to (1992), I Have Words to Spend - Reflections of a Small Town Editor (1994), In the Middle of the Night (1995), Tenderness (1997). Movies based on books by Robert Cormier: I Am the Cheese (1983, USA, directed by Robert Jiras, with Robert MacNaughton), The Chocolate War (1988, USA, directed by Keith Gordon, with John Glover), Lapse of Memory (1992, Canada, original title: Memoire Tranquée, with John Hurt).
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