Invisible (novel)
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Invisible is a novel by Pete Hautman detailing a 17-year-old boy's battle with his inner demons and his descent into insanity.
[edit] Plot summary
There are 2 things that help Dougie - Douglas MacArthur Hanson - deal with his feelings of loneliness and isolation: the model railroad he's building out of matches, and the nightly talks with his best (and only) friend, Andy Morrow. Athletic, popular Andy is very different from socially inept Dougie, yet the two find what to talk about. They discuss everything - except for what happened at the Tuttle Place three years ago. It is evident that Andy and Dougie's friendship (which adults are afraid of) is not what it seems to be at first: not only is Andy absent when Dougie needs him most, he pressures Dougie into stalking a classmate, Mellisa Haverman, and making a bomb threat via the telephone. When Dougie's psychologist finds out that he's been skipping sessions and hiding his medications, the teenager is forced to remember that fateful night at the Tuttle Place...the truth is that Andy is dead, a victim of the night at the Tuttle place when they accidentally set fire to the house.
In the end, he sets fire to his beloved bridge while in the basement, becoming a burn victim at the hospital. Andy then visits him, promising to return.
However, it is debatable as to whether Dougie died or not, since he was hospitalized at the "Madham Burn Unit", the name of his self-built town with his railroad of matchsticks. He also mentions that the hospital smells of burning plastic, referring to the plastic people in Madham, present when he set the town on fire. Whether it is his imagination that leads him to smelling burnt plastic and seeing "Madham Burn Unit" or he has passed away and Madham hospital is his place of rest is not revealed.
[edit] Major themes
The book is written in a logical, analytical manner that shows the personality of Dougie and his inner madness.
The idea of a character only existing in the protagonist's mind or a hallucination (using the Rashomon effect to deceive the reader) is used in many films and books, including Fight Club and The Sixth Sense.
