In this coming of age story by Robert Cormier, seventeen-year-old Mike grew a moustache to prove he could. He likes the look, and wants to keep it. When he visits his grandmother, who lives in a nursing home and is losing her memory, he is worried she won’t recognize him. However, when she sees him she smiles and calls him by name. Later, he realizes she has mistaken him for his late grandfather who he was named after and also wore a moustache. She then tells him a secret that affects him greatly. Themes: identity, family, aging, guilt, forgiveness, communication.
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General Comments
Cormier is best known for troubled protagonists so (for him) this story is a little unusual in that it deals with a boy in his late teens who appears to have a relatively normal life. Mike has a good relationship with his family. They clearly love and respect him, and his father trusts Mike enough to let him borrow his high-powered car. Mike also has a girlfriend who cares enough to put up with his precocious moustache and resultant empty wallet.
Meg (Mike’s grandmother) suffers some kind of dementia. As Mike comes into her room, Meg is watching imaginary birds feeding outside her window. This tells the reader that her mind is not in the real world, but re-living some past event. Mike initially thinks that she recognizes him. However, she also sees him as an imaginary figure from her past. She seeks his forgiveness for a terrible mistake she made years before Mike was even born. When he gives it, her expression changes for a moment into euphoric love. Then the memory disappears and she gives Mike a blank, empty stare.
In describing the nursing home, Cormier foreshadows that Meg may not have long to live: I approached Lawnrest — which is a terrible cemetery kind of name… The story leaves readers with the feeling that Meg will rest a lot more easily for the time she has left.
One of the first things Mike does when he gets home is shave off the moustache. The visit has affected him greatly. He has learnt that things in life are not always as they seem and, in a relationship, to never leave important things unsaid.