"Exposing Teenagers To One Fact of Life"
In this brief review of <em>After the First Death</em>, Jim Haskins, an associate professor of English at the University of Florida, offers his impressions of Robert Cormier's novel. After summarizing the plot broadly, Haskins goes onto compliment Cormier's writing as honest and powerful - in some cases as brutal as it is riveting.
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Robert Cormier Collection at Fitchburg State University's Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library
11 March 1979
Elise Takehana, Anna Consalvo, Katy Covino
JPG newsprint
English
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"Fact nor far behind fiction"
In this published news story included in <em>The Plain Dealer</em>, author Janice Carter discusses how the events detailed in <em>After the First Death</em> are not too far from fiction. Referring to a conversation with Robert Cormier, she shares how some of the novel's features reflect recent terrorist acts. Cormier notes how there is little research available to those interested in writing about terrorism. To that end, he wanted to use the novel to "explore the mind of a terrorist" - specifically the human side. Carter notes that these types of stories - violent, fast-paced and compelling - are often at the forefront of Cormier's young adult fiction.
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<em>The Plain Dealer</em>
Robert Cormier Collection at Fitchburg State University's Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library
2 May 1980
Elise Takehana, Anna Consalvo, Katy Covino
JPG, newsprint
English
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Book Review: "Nightmarish Novel of Terrorist Violence"
Grover Sales' review of <em>After the First Death</em> for the <em>San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle</em> praises the book's treatment of terrorism as above the current trends on the topic. He specifically speaks of patriotism and Ben Marchant's spoiled innocence.
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Robert Cormier Collection at Fitchburg State University's Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library
24 June 1979
Elise Takehana, Anna Consalvo
JPG, newsprint
English
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Book Review: "Too Much Terror for Us Rabbits"
Clarence E. Olson reviews <em>After the First Death</em>, stating that he will avoid reading Robert Cormier's work in the future, not for a lack of quality writing, but because its use of sustained terror is nerve-wracking and emotive. He writes "Cormier has the ruthlessness of a terrorist himself, the kind of ideological drive that makes him pull back the bloodied sheet and demand that we look squarely at the consequences of violence." He speaks to the impossible circumstance Cormier places his adolescent characters and the pervasive evil in his stories, making reference to <em>I Am the Cheese</em> to do so.
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Robert Cormier Collection at Fitchburg State University's Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library
Elise Takehana, Anna Consalvo
JPG, newsprint
English
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