Invisible [Library Binding]

Pete Hautman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2006

You could say that my railroad, the Madham Line, is almost the most important thing in my life. Next to Andy Morrow, my best friend....I guess you could say that I'm not only disturbed, I'm obsessed.

Lots of people think Doug Hanson is a freak -- he gets beat up after school and the girl of his dreams calls him a worm. Doug's only refuge is building elaborate model trains in his basement and hanging out with his best friend, Andy Morrow. Andy is nothing like Doug: He's a popular football star who could date any girl in school. Despite their differences, Doug and Andy talk about everything -- except what happened at the Tuttle place a few years back.

As Doug retreats deeper and deeper into his own world, long-buried secrets come to light -- and the more he tries to keep them invisible, the looser his grip on reality becomes. In this fierce, disturbing novel, Pete Hautman spins a poignant tale about inner demons, and how far one boy will go to control them.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 7 Up–Seventeen-year-old Dougie takes everything literally, lacks social graces, and is a loner, except, perhaps, for his one friend, athletic and popular Andy Morrow. But readers know almost immediately that something tragic has happened in the recent past: "Andy and I had some bad luck with fires when we were kids. We're more careful now." Other students feel threatened by Dougie's disturbing behavior and react by targeting him with cruelty and violence, which only serves to escalate his descent into unreality, isolation, and obsession. The teen has been working for nearly three years on his model railroad set, using 22,400 headless matches to build a bridge connecting portions of the "Madham Line." As his life deteriorates, this obsession and his nightly talks with Andy are the only things that keep him clinging to normalcy. He resists the help of his psychiatrist and hides his medication. Ultimately, he is forced to remember what actually happened on that fateful night. With its excellent plot development and unforgettable, heartbreaking protagonist, this is a compelling novel of mental illness.–Susan Riley, Mount Kisco Public Library, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Gr. 7-10. It's hard to tell if Hautman meant this to be a mystery, but it's clear from the start that there's something not right about the relationship between narrator Doug Hanson and his best friend, Andy Morrow. Doug, a self-proclaimed nerd, is primarily interested in building a matchstick replica of the Golden Gate Bridge for his model railway town. Andy is popular, a football player and actor. But the boys live next door to each other and talk from their bedroom windows at night. In an almost robotic voice that still manages to be intensely insightful, Doug takes readers to his school, where he is mocked and eventually beaten, and to his neighborhood, where he turns into a Peeping Tom, watching school star Melanie Haver undress. Hautman does a superb job of crafting the odd sanctuary that is Doug's mind. But Doug's defenses are crumbling, and the secret he's been keeping about Andy is oozing through the cracks. The truth about Andy won't come as a surprise, but there are some unexpected plot turns here, and the chilling but ambiguous denouement is definitely unsettling. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Library Binding: 146 pages
• Publisher: Turtleback Books: A Division of Sanval (November 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417764260
• ISBN-13: 978-1417764266
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,061,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Okay, here's some miscellaneous personal info. I'll try to be as brief as possible. I was born in 1952 in Berkeley, California, or so I am told (I don't really remember). At age five I moved to St. Louis Park, Minnesota where I went to Cedar Manor Elementary School (also the alma mater of Al Franken and the Coen brothers, and no, they are not close personal friends of mine) and eventually graduated honor-free from St. Louis Park High School. This is so tedious. Why do you keep reading? For the next seven years I attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the University of Minnesota. Contrary to recent news reports, I did not graduate from either institution. After college I worked various jobs for which I was ill-suited, including sign painter, graphic artist, marketing executive, pineapple slicer, etc. Eventually, having exhausted other options, I decided to write. My first novel, Drawing Dead, was published in 1993. Today, I live with mystery writer and poet Mary Logue in Golden Valley, Minnesota and Stockholm, Wisconsin. We have two small dogs (are you still reading?) named Rene and Jacques. There you have it. Fifty-plus years compressed into a few short paragraphs. Feel free to copy and paste for your book report, but don't tell anybody I suggested it. Need to know more? Check out the FAQs page on my website at http://www.petehautman.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: INVISIBLE, May 21, 2005

By 

Richie Partington "Richie's Picks" (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Invisible (Hardcover)

"Trouble
Oh trouble set me free
I have seen your face
And it's too much too much for me
Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You're eating my heart away
And there's nothing much left of me"
--Cat Stevens, "Trouble"

Pete Hautman's INVISIBLE is going to make for one hot booktalk.

"My full and proper name is Douglas MacArthur Hanson. I am named after Douglas MacArthur, the famous general, who was a second cousin of my father's great-aunt. Everyone on my father's side is named after some famous person we are supposedly related to. My father's name is Henry Clay Hanson. Henry Clay was a politician who died before the Civil War. He was my grandfather's cousin's great-uncle. Or something like that. It goes on and on. Since my grandfather's name was George Washington Hanson, I guess I'm related to the father of our country too. Anyway, I'm glad I got named after a general instead of a politician. I think it makes me sound more respectable.
"Usually when I meet someone for the first time, I tell them my full and proper name. Then I say, 'But you can call me General.' Some people find this amusing. Andy always laughs. Sometimes he calls me General, just to tease me. I don't mind. I kind of like it. I am very easy to get along with.
"My mother would not agree with that. She finds me difficult. In fact, she thinks that I am troubled and disturbed. I find it troubling that she finds me disturbing, so she must be right.
"Right?"

In a spectacular and tense piece of writing that recalls my favorite Cormier novel, I AM THE CHEESE, but with the strings pulled even tighter, Pete Hautman has created a disturbingly real character whose troubled life will cause you nightmares.

" 'Haven't I seen you somewhere in hell,
or was it just an accident?' "
--Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend"

Dougie is a loner who is thoroughly obsessed with the model train world he has created in the basement, with numbers and order, and with the beautiful Melissa Haverman. His best friend and next door neighbor, the popular Andy Morrow, is both a drama kid and the star quarterback on the football team.

"And it's burn baby burn
When am I going to get my turn?"
--Bruce Cockburn, "Burn"

"Do I strike you as troubled?
"Let me give you some facts and figures. I am seventeen years old. I am a junior at Fairview Central. I have never skipped school and I have a 3.4 grade point average. I do not use drugs or alcohol. I have never been seriously ill. I have never broken a bone, lost a limb, or had an organ removed. I am scrupulously honest, except for necessary lies. I sleep well at night. I am not a loner. I have a best friend."

Do NOT believe him.

And do NOT start reading INVISIBLE if you have to be anywhere important in the next couple of hours.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Invisible Review by Rachel, March 21, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Invisible (Hardcover)

Pete Hautman's Invisible focuses on Doug Hanson, a seventeen-year-old boy who is considered a nerd. In this mysterious and tense novel Doug is bullied by other boys and the girls think he is weird. Doug's hobby is building a huge model train track that almost fills his whole basement. Throughout all of this, Andy, his best friend, encourages him and shares similar interests; only he is a cool, popular football player. Every time Doug mentions Andy, his parents look at each other. Doug doesn't understand why he is sent to therapy and given pills that make him unclear and sleepy all the time. Through the story Doug tries to conceal an event that happened to Andy and him a few years before. The story is finally uncovered, and Doug's life changes forever.
I enjoyed this book because it kept me reading and reading. After I finished it, I couldn't stop thinking about the twisty ending. It was an easy read, but keeps you involved and thinking. I think it is a good level for eleven through fourteen year old girls and boys who like realistic fiction.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the top teen reads of the year, March 26, 2006

By 

Jessica Lux (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Invisible (Hardcover)

This comes in as one of my favorite YA reads published in 2005. There is brilliance, elegance, and genius in simplicity, and Pete Hautman's Invisible exemplifies this maxim. Despite the fact that it is less than 150 pages long, with a large font and short chapters, Invisible covers years of events, actions, and emotions with remarkable clarity.

Teenaged Doug Hanson is a freak--he stares inappropriately at girls, he is despised by his classmates, he has a fascination with fire, he dwells on various ways of death (fire vs. freezing), and he can produce nothing in art class other than repeated versions of his signet. The only person who understands Doug is his next door neighbor, the popular football player Andy, Doug and Andy chat through their windows at night, and Andy advises his friend not to be so risky with his habit of spying on girls in their bedrooms. Too bad Doug's parents and his therapist think he's talking to himself when he converses with Andy.

Invisible is a brilliant look inside the man of a troubled teen, one who has criminal incidents in his past, no friends in the present, and an absolute obsession with both model trains and pyrotechnics. The narrative voice of this novel is pure poetry.