I Am the Cheese

Dave is Adam’s dad, and is shown through Adam’s eyes. At first, he is an archetypal father figure, with Adam thinking of his dad as “a cutout figure whose caption said Father” (37). He has a secure but nondescript job, and he’s somewhat goofy, singing “The Farmer in the Dell,” claiming that it’s the theme song for his family. Before the reader discovers Dave’s past, Cormier gives Dave texture by tying him to literature. The narrator explains, “The only time his father emerged as a person was when the subject of books came up” (37). The reference to Dave’s love for reading and writing foreshadows his prior identity as a journalist.

Dave’s real name is Anthony Delmonte, and even as Anthony Delmonte, Dave sticks to an archetypal characterization—though it relates to journalism. Anthony represents the dogged, honest, and upright reporter who exposes corruption and toxic power. He doesn’t want to become a celebrity. Adam says, “[N]o heroics—my father didn’t want any” (140). Dave testified because he was an “old-fashioned citizen who believed in doing the right thing for his country” (138). Dave is humble and honorable, and his main ambition is to write substantial journalism.

Arguably, Dave’s quiet journalistic character counters real-life journalists who achieve stardom or make themselves the center of the story. The two Washington Post journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who revealed the Watergate scandal entered the spotlight and became the subject of a Hollywood film, All the President’s Men (1976), with Robert Redford playing Woodward and Dustin Hoffman taking on the role of Bernstein. Dave also contrasts with New Journalists like Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, who often made themselves and their voices the center of their stories. The narrator takes a dig at Wolfe when Adam praises Amy for not confusing Thomas Wolfe “with the hip writer Tom Wolfe” (52).

As Dave established a solid identity as Anthony Delmonte, leaving Anthony Delmonte is a battle. Dave misses journalism, and he avoids speaking to Amy’s journalistic dad, fearing his longing for journalism will expose his secret identity. To advance his new identity, Dave grows a mustache, wears glasses, and gives up smoking. Adam remembers his dad smelling like smoke, but he doesn’t recall seeing his dad smoke cigarettes—foreshadowing his dad’s former self.

In a similar pattern to Adam’s dad, Louise Holden first appears as an archetypal mom and housewife. However, she is sad and withdrawn, and she doesn’t have any friends or professional commitments. When the Farmers move from Blount to Monument, Adam observes his mom: “She looked so sad, purple half-moons under her eye” (13). Her feelings hint that all is not as it seems to the young Adam, though the reader doesn’t realize until later why Louise experiences disquiet.

Before her husband’s testimony and the arrival of Grey, Louise had a challenging life. Her mom died after giving birth to her second child, and her artistic dad had alcoholism and froze to death in the snow. The narrator describes Louise as a “shy beauty” with blue eyes, and Dave “rescued Louise Nolan from her grief” (134-35). The description and dynamic turns Dave into Louise’s prince charming and Louise into the distressed princess.

Once Adam discovers the truth, Louise becomes overtly complex. While Dave follows Grey’s orders, Louise is a “rebel,” speaking “resentfully, almost contemptuously” about Grey (176). Louise is empowered, and she doesn’t like the power Grey possesses. Subverting protocols, Louise stays in touch with an aunt (who’s in a convent). As the story never divulges another first name for Louise, she presumably keeps her first name. She also pushes Grey to make Adam’s birthday the same. Adam mimics Louise’s resistance with Brint. Adam doesn’t mindlessly follow Brint’s instructions or wishes.

Arguably, Louise’s real last name, Holden, alludes to Holden Caulfield––the teen antihero in J. D. Salinger’s canonized American novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Louise’s son and Holden go on challenging journeys in the Northeast, and each boys’ journey ends in a psychiatric hospital.

Initially, Amy Hertz is presented as Adam’s romantic interest and mentor, but she is revealed to be part of his imagined life, and an alter-ego. As such, she represents an idealized part of Adam and his longing for a normal, fun-filled childhood. Her last name “Hertz” is a homophone for “hurts,” showing that his imagined longing for her, and inability to reach her, is an expression of his distress.

Adam and Amy make out under the football stands, and Adam falls “madly in love with her” (52). She likes to read, and Adam and her meet when they bump into each other at the library, with Amy comparing the moment to a scene from an old Hollywood movie, alerting the reader that the scene, like the movie, might be a work of fiction. Amy is funny and courts “mischief,” performing Numbers, like filling a shopping cart and ditching it in a grocery store, or writing fake love letters to a despised teacher. Through Amy, Adam becomes outgoing and questioning. She inspires him to look into his parents’ past. On his journey to Rutterburg, he repeatedly tries to call Amy, reinforcing his reliance on her. Adam doesn’t imagine a stereotypically beautiful girlfriend. Though Amy has blue eyes and “wonderful breasts,” she’s “short and robust and freckled, and one of her front teeth was crooked” (52). She’s imperfect, increasing her verisimilitude.

The novel increasingly suggests that Amy doesn’t exist. At first it seems that Adam may be confused or that she is a normal teenage fantasy girlfriend. The gradual revelation that she is part of a wholly imagined experience adds to the narrative’s arc of loss. The novel’s creation of Amy and the happiness associated with her increases the bleakness of Adam’s real world when she is shown to be unreal.

Brint is Adam’s antagonist. His role in the novel is the representative of corrupt and powerful forces. He works for the government and, like Grey, he’s a member of the Re-Identification Department. The tape transcripts document the discussions between Brint and Adam, and Brint appears manipulative and abusive. When Adam refuses to speak, Brint says, “You disappoint me. Can’t you think of the one person who will benefit?” (77). Brint lies. The beneficiaries aren’t Adam but the federal government, and, working for the federal government, Brint interrogates Adam to see if Adam will divulge further information about his dad’s testimony and relationship with Grey.

Brint exonerates Grey and concludes Grey didn’t conspire to kill Adam’s parents. Brint is not a trustworthy voice, and his technocratic diction makes his instructions opaque. “Termination procedures” and “obliterates” (233) could mean letting Adam out of the program or killing Adam. The language is detached and inhumane, the opposite of therapeutic. A few times, Brint departs from his steely characterization, like when he tells Adam, “I, too, am human. I have headaches, upset stomach at times. I slept badly last night” (164), but these assertions feel robotic and insincere, intended to manipulate. Brint’s implacability is representative of the inescapable powers he represents. Adam’s voice in the transcripts is mediated and controlled by Brint, who has the power to decide when and whether to interview Adam.