WE ALL FALL DOWN by Robert...

WE ALL FALL DOWN by Robert Cormier (Delacorte: $16; 193 pp.) Superlatives are dangerous things but there is no risk at all to the bold statement that Robert Cormier is one of the genuinely great writers of young-adult fiction of his generation--or any other. The evidence is as close at hand as the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award, which he won earlier this year for the body of his work. His newest contribution to that body is “We All Fall Down,” the troubling and suspenseful story of the trashing of a suburban house and the emotional damage that this senseless act of violence visits on both victims and perpetrators. Most of us forget the aching awfulness of adolescence when we become adults. It’s Cormier’s special burden to remember, and it is his special genius to be able to translate that memory into novels of intensity, immediacy and empathy. Nevertheless, Cormier never lets his obviously deep concern for his teen-age protagonists Buddy and Jane compromise the painful inevitabilities of a real world in which wrong choices--like it or not--do have the power to negate the promise of glibly happy endings. “We All Fall Down” is a deeply moving, troubling and thought-provoking novel.