The Rag and Bone Shop

Robert Cormier's final novel, THE RAG AND BONE SHOP, takes its name from a line in a poem by William Butler Yeats --- "I must lie down where all the ladders start/In the foul rag?and?bone shop of the heart." In this novel, Cormier explores the lengths to which a person might go. In the end, both of the book's main characters discover they have gone too far. Jason Dorrant is 12 years old and something of a misfit. Quiet and shy, he is more comfortable around younger children than around his peers. For this reason, he is considered "slow" by people in his town. Jason has some friends, but they tend to be little kids like his 7?year?old pal Alicia Bartlett. THE RAG AND BONE SHOP reveals what happens after Alicia is discovered dead. It turns out that Jason had visited Alicia the day of her death. Jason wants to do all he can to help the police catch her killer. He agrees to tell them everything he knows. The police, meanwhile, suspect that Jason is the killer. They turn to a man named Mr. Trent who specializes in interrogation. Trent has never failed to get a criminal to confess. He is especially motivated in this case --- a senator with an interest in Alicia's murder has promised to help his career if he gets a confession. A good portion of the book takes place in a small, hot, windowless room --- the interrogation room. Cormier describes it in enough detail to make the reader as uncomfortable as Jason is while he is being questioned. The way Trent works is also detailed --- first he does everything he can to gain Jason's trust, then Trent tries to persuade him to confess to killing his young friend. At the same time, Jason struggles to understand both what Trent wants from him and what he remembers about Alicia's last day alive. Cormier moved smoothly between the two characters' points of view, building suspense and driving the story to its powerful conclusion --- a conclusion with no winners. Although the book is very nearly flawless, it may be one chapter too long. The final chapter concerns the aftermath of Jason's experience with Trent. It wraps up the book with a shocking surprise, but it also seems a bit unrealistic, taking a believable story and stretching our ability to believe it a little too far. The chapter is unnecessary due to the excellent job Cormier did describing Jason late in the book. Even with the last chapter, however, THE RAG AND BONE SHOP, like many of Cormier's classics, including THE CHOCOLATE WAR, is a dark and fascinating book. Cormier died in November of 2000 at the age of 75, but THE RAG AND BONE SHOP clearly reveals that he was still at the top of his game, writing in his characteristic uncluttered style and making full and powerful use of his knack for revealing the motivations of his characters in this suspenseful and sad story. Part mystery and part cautionary tale, THE RAG AND BONE SHOP is a fine finale to Cormier's career. (...)

The Rag and Bone Shop, Robert Cormier's last book before his death, is not for the young or faint of heart.Interrogated by an expert, 12 yr. old Jason cannot avoid linking himself to the murdered 7 yr old. Does what he say cause him to become someone different? In the windowless interrogation room he perceives the double-edged sword of reality and its underlying currents of suspicion and need. This book is for mature readers because the seemingly simple story twists and turns into a stark fatal attraction. Are truth and justice found in the rag and bone shop? The suspense builds with each answer that Jason gives. Like writing an epitaph on a tombstone, author Robert Cormier lures the reader into formulating and answering a poignant question. And not until the end does he...reader, this is a master at work; you'll not want to close the cover of this powerful, slim book.

Robert Cormier doesn't waste words. In his lifetime, he penned over 25 young adult novels...each one a gem in its own right. With "Rag and Bone Shop", he delves into darker territory with a precise economy of words, but doesn't ignore the deep emotional territory on which he treads...or at least his characters. Telling the tale of Jason Dorrant, a middle-school youngster who is accused of killing his friends younger sister, Alicia Bartlett, Cormier drives the story along quickly and deftly. In a political (aren't they all?) manuever, local officials bring in Trent, an ace interrigator, who is known for eliciting confessions from even the most innocent suspects. Jason is brought into the local police station, and sequestered with Trent, who is undergoing some personal doubts about himself, the fairly recent death of his wife, and about the young man he is hired to make confess.Cormier handles this taut, suspenseful story with guts and grit, drawing his characters with broad strokes, but making them feel like we've known them for some time.

Reading Cormier's swan song is all the sadder for knowing it's his swan song. His time to be re-evaluated as a master of fiction, not just a master of young-adult fiction, is long overdue. In any event, the bulk of this one is a prolonged and bruising interrogation. A seven-year-old girl has been found murdered. Twelve-year-old Jason Dorrant is the prime suspect, though there's no 'physical evidence' to link him to the crime. Trent, a hotshot interrogator brought in to speed the case to closure, grills the boy. This being Cormier, you're pretty sure Jason is innocent, but only pretty sure. Hence the compassion and cruelty of Cormier's method -- sometimes when reading the latest Cormier book (including this one) you'd sort of get mad at him for creating such likable, sympathetic characters and then putting them into the meat grinder. But he made you care, so it was impossible to stay mad even if you hated what happened to the good people in his work. This is classic Cormier -- childhood innocence broken on the rack of adult corruption (the town officials want to point the finger at Jason because they want SOMEONE to take the fall); sensitive and alert rendering of shifting moods and thoughts (Cormier's books have always been too interiorized to allow for good movie adaptations; I wouldn't want to see Hollywood attempt this one); the sense that evil often prevails, but that doesn't mean good shouldn't try anyway; and, most vividly, one of the most chilling final lines in all of Cormier. I sort of wish Cormier had left us with something a little more optimistic, but he was never particularly optimistic, just realistic. And his complex portrait of Trent -- as a man who has grown to hate what he does and who he is, but does it anyway because it's necessary and he happens to be skilled at it -- separates Cormier from many youth-flattering authors who indulge in easy kids=good, adults=bad equations. Cormier was about the messier arithmetic of the human soul. It's a shame he's not still out there crunching those numbers. He will be missed.

How I wish Robert Cormier was alive right now so I could call him up and tell him exactly what I thought of this wonderful book. It was pretty obvious to me from the beginning who committed the crime. The question was: would Jason confess? When I heard about this book I figured it would be some combination of the elements of Cormier's previous books "Tenderness" and "I am the Cheese". Trent is not like Brint, but in the end they acted very much the same. And Jason is no Eric Poole...until the end. I read the second-to-last chapter and thought, "Whew." Then I read the final pages and I was like "Oh my god..." This book is like the grand finale at the end of a fireworks show. Good work, Robert!