Darkness Invisible: Robert Cormier's Fade

Wouldn't it be cool to be invisible? To be able to go anyway you want without anyone who might stop you being able to see you? To see anything you want without ever getting caught? Wouldn't that be neat?

Then again, maybe it would not be that neat. Suppose you ended up going places you didn't really want to go? Or seeing things you didn't really want to see?

As you might guess, Robert Cormier's novel Fade is based on the latter premise. His protagonist is a young French-Canadian kid named Paul Moreaux who lives in Depression-era Massachusetts. One day he discovers that he has inherited the gift of invisibility from his ancestors. His uncle Adelard -- who also has the gift -- tries to clue him in on the various drawbacks of the gift but, alas, the lesson does not quite go far enough.

Paul Moreaux quickly discovers the darker side of his “gift” and eventually discovers an even darker side to it when it gets passed on to an illegitimate relative. He tries to do the right thing but finds that that is not so easy to do. And then...

But to say much more is to spoil the story and Robert Cormier's story does not deserve to be spoiled. This novel was nominated for the 1989 World Fantasy Award and quite frankly, it deserves its nomination. It also received a recent shout-out on the Byzantium's Shores site so I felt obliged to give it a shout-out on this site as well.

I read this book over fifteen years ago and I still find the novel worth re-reading. Unfortunately, the book has never been made into a movie but then given the bizarre things Hollywood often does to great novels, that is probably more a blessing than a curse.