Hautman, Pete (2005). Invisible. NY: Simon and Schuster. ISBN: 0689868006. 160 pages.
From the very beginning of the story, narrator Doug Hanson, a 17-year-old high school student, lets us know that he is different. He has amazing powers of focus and concentration and has spent most of his late adolescence hanging out with his best friend, Andy, and working on a minaturized-to-scale railroad track and set-up. Doug's other project is one undertaken in art class: he is working on stylizing what he calls a sigil, a graphic seal he has created that combines his and Andy's intials. As the novel progresses, we are treated to the visual progression of his project, a transformation that astute readers will notice strongly resembles Louis Wain's developing artistic focus on cats as a painting subject (see Louis Wain for a record of his work). Of course, this comparision is likely a technique Hautman uses to convey the book's secret: I won't spoil it for you here, but let's just say that Doug is a VERY unreliable narrator. This is an interesting and intriguing book that will definitely appeal; I might pair this one with As Simple As Snow because of the element of narrative mystery. |
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