Could someone please summarize the book "I Am The Cheese", by Robert Cormier?

Question

Omygosh, I just finished reading it and it left me SO PUZZLED. I followed the story alright up until the last few pages when he got to the hospital. It got so confusing! Was his dad in Rutterburg or not? What the bloody h**l was the whole "riding to the hospital all over again---only riding outside the hospital---the dad not even being there". Please clear this up for me as I have to write a report on it for school xD. Thanks for the help xD.

Answer 1

The book starts off with the central character, Adam Farmer, riding his bike to Rutterburg, Vermont with a package for his father. However, as he travels, he starts to remember the events leading up to the end of the book. These same memories are also being filled out in psychiatric interviews that occur at an undetermined time through out the book. Adam Farmer's real name is Paul Delmonte. His father had been an investigative reporter who uncovered a large conspiracy and testified against it in Washington. After several attempts on his life, he and his family entered the Department of Re-identification. Adam had not been told about his past for his entire life. One day he receives a phone call from his girlfriend, Amy Hertz. She says that her father met a reporter from the town Adam supposedly was born in, and the reporter had never heard of any "Farmers" in the town. This gave Adam suspicions, and he began spying on his parents. He later found two birth certificates, one with his birthday listed as February 14, and another with his birthday as July 14th. This aroused his suspicions further. He started looking around the house and then his father told him the truth. Later, they received a phone call from their protector, Mr.Grey, saying that they may been discovered. They go on "vacation" to hide. One day while on vacation, their "protection" attacked them, killing Adam's mother instantly. Either Mr. Grey and his men were killed as part of the conspiracy, or Adam's father had become too large a liability for the "bad guys", and thus was to be terminated. Adam survived and heard that his father was being pursued, but he was not sure whether he had been found and killed. He was placed in a hospital where he is interrogated every year by an enemy agent named Brint. Brint seems to be an agent in the witness protection program. Each time he ends up forgetting everything that he learned due to mental stress when he regains all of his memories of what happened and begins the journey all over again. The people he meets in his journey are the same people who reside in the memories. It is also revealed that his bike ride is not one to Rutterburg at all. In fact, it is merely going around the mental care facility again and again, meeting the patients and workers there. Adam, however, imagines them to be the ride to Rutterburg, putting fake identities onto everything and everyone. The sessions with Brint in the novel represent the third time he has been questioned. The final interview ends with a list of several possible outcomes, but none bode well for Adam: questioning him until he dies or terminating him. The chapters alternate between first-person, present tense, during Adam's journey, and third-person, past tense, during the psychiatric interviews.

hope i helped! :)