How to find a novel whose subject was invisibility?

December 10, 2009 8:58 AM

I can't remember the name of a novel I read around 1999 -- I believe it was a "new release" around that time. I get that date because I also read "A Conspiracy of Tall Men" around that time. The scraps I remember from the book were finding a book or a secret society about invisibility. Invisib* might have been in the title. I think there was a father figure -- maybe the actual father or a professor to a young man in search of invisibility.
posted by indigo4963 to Writing & Language (6 answers total)

Robert Cormier's FADE is about a family that passes on the ability to turn invisible. It came out ten years earlier than your other book though.
posted by meadowlark lime at 9:01 AM on December 10, 2009

Best answer: I think it's Indigo, by Graham Joyce. (The edition in the Amazon link is from 2000, but the original publication date for Indigo is 1999.)
posted by cog_nate at 9:28 AM on December 10, 2009

sounds a bit like stone junction by jim dodge ... but can't imagine you forgetting that one in a hurry (even 9 years)...
posted by 6am at 9:38 AM on December 10, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks for the responses so far. The description of Indigo sounds right, but the cover / title don't strike a chord with me. Nonetheless, it's odd enough that I started liking the username Indigo and wrote a poem with Indigo in the title (though that was in 1997).
posted by indigo4963 at 9:54 AM on December 10, 2009

Response by poster: I re-read the description for Indigo, and it's exactly what I was looking for. I'm also going to look into these other books mentioned.

I guess it's impossible to ask for more novels about invisibility in this thread, eh?
posted by indigo4963 at 10:02 AM on December 10, 2009

I'm going with Indigo as well--I read that book around the same time. The main character hooks up with his estranged father figure in pursuit of the observation of an exceedingly rare color.

Here's the clincher: if you remember a bizarre sex scene where the main character wears a helmet covered with disorienting mirrors, well, that's the same book.
posted by dervish at 1:58 PM on December 10, 2009