The Rag and Bone Shop
by Robert Cormier
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert CormierEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-05-13
ISBN: 0440229715
Number of pages: 176
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
Book Reviews of The Rag and Bone Shop
Book Review: A stunning, deeply troubling book
Summary: 5 Stars
Note: The vote on this review was made by a troll-creature intent on harassing me. The vote does not reflect the book at all!
I read "The Rag and Bone Shop" with a deepening sense of dread. In this his last novel, Robert Cormier uses a brilliant economy of words to create a crescendo of dread and fear. The premonition that terrible things will happen hangs heavy in every word. Robert Cormier was never a writer to paint a rosy picture of childhood. Ugly things can and do happen. As they do here.
Trent is a celebrated interrogator, a master at extricating a confession for crimes committed from even the most cunning of criminals. Jason is a twelve-year-old boy whose confession Trent is determined to pull out of his heart. After all, Trent's motto has ever been: "I must lie down where all the ladders start,/In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart" (Yeats). The victim is seven-year-old Alicia, a child Jason admires and whose company he enjoys. He is considered the prime suspect for her murder.
Two interior monologs, first one, then the other, of Trent and Jason, comprise the majority of the novel. Trent's thrill of the chase, his burning desire to get that confession, his thoughts and reactions to Jason's every facial gesture, every thrill of his body movements, every pause, drive Trent in an increasing intensity of the climax of a confession. Add to that two factors: public demand that the killer be found and a promised reward by the area's senator for Trent "to write his own ticket" if he manages the rag of confession from the litter of bones in the heart of this Jason.
There is no question that the human heart contains rags and bones as the detritus of the human propensity to do evil. Robert Cormier is a master of the story depicting this negative and awful condition. That he frames it in young adult novels is what is so shocking.
Another distressing example from Cormier's body of work is We All Fall Down. (What? This book is out of print?). In it a gang of boys go on a joy ride then break into a house and trash it, including defecating on the floors, writing on the walls, and destroying furniture, pictures, and obviously prized possessions. Later one of the boys meets the girl who lives there. They begin a lovely relationship until he confesses. It is a shocking and heartbreaking novel.
Cormier's most controversial and often banned book (prior to "The Rag and Bone Shop") is The Chocolate War (Readers Circle). This is a devastating story of a boy forced to sell chocolate. It bears the theme of nonconformity trapped in man's inhumanity to man. One does not easily read a Cormier book without considering the rag and bone shop fouling man's heart.
Another reviewer acidly wonders how Cormier could do to Jason what he does. I ask: Why not? It is an awful thing, but given his character and his nature, he acts legitimately. No, the ending makes me sick, but I think Cormier expressed a very damning road that some people willingly and knowingly take as their choice for their life's journey. "You are what you do."
Summary of The Rag and Bone Shop
Twelve-year old Jason is accused of the brutal murder of a young girl. Is he innocent or guilty? The shocked town calls on an interrogator with a stellar reputation: he always gets a confession. The confrontation between Jason and his interrogator forms the chilling climax of this terrifying look at what can happen when the pursuit of justice becomes a personal crusade for victory at any cost.From the Hardcover edition.
This final novel from the grand master of young-adult fiction is one last jewel in the literary crown of Robert Cormier, who died in November 2000. In it he continues to explore the themes that are so characteristic of his work: guilt and forgiveness, misuse of authority, and the corruption of innocence. But a new book from Cormier is always a surprise, and here he gives us a brilliant evocation of the detective story, in a narrative that centers on the interrogation of a murder suspect.
A 7-year-old girl has been battered to death, and there are no suspects, no leads. The police, under political pressure to make an arrest, bring in Trent, a cold, ambitious professional interrogator who prides himself on his ability to extract confessions. His victim is 12-year-old Jason--the last person to see the girl. We know that Jason is innocent, and halfway through the interrogation Trent realizes it, too, in "a blazing moment." But like a medieval torturer, his goal is confession, not truth, and so he stifles his impulses for good and proceeds with the job, with deeply ironic consequences.
The interrogation itself, which forms the centerpiece of the novel, is dazzling in its elegant thrust-and-parry, its subtle twists and turns, as Jason frantically tries to escape, like a mouse caged with a python. The point of view snaps back and forth so that we are intensely aware of the shifting emotions of both participants in the deadly game. And once again, Cormier has given us an ending that seems provocative and uncomfortable--until we remember that the center of his moral universe was always summed up by the words "if only." (Ages 12 and older) --Patty Campbell
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