Tenderness

There is a moment early on in this powerful but extremely disturbing novel when reference is made to 'that terrible world out there'. This is the bleak contemporary landscape familiar to us from previous Cormier books, a terrian in which the values of what might be called 'the system' (invariably perceived as corrupt and dehumanising) are challenged by youthful protagonist in search of their own dreams and fulfilment. Here, the youthful protagonists come in the form of Eric, an eighteen-year-old serial killer, and Lori, a young woman of fifteen, who introduces herself in the novel's opening line as a person who gets 'fixated on something' someone who 'can't help' herself. Both have a history of societal and sexual abuse, resulting in a compulsive need to experience the 'tenderness' of the book's title. From their intertwining destinies Cormier shapes a narrative which, in its sheer power to hold a reader's attention, is tinglingly skilful. It has, additionally, the tantalizing merit of provoking questions about crime and responsibility, motive and manipulation, which threaten to dislodge even our most apparently secure assumptions.