4.8 /10 1 Votes
21% Rotten Tomatoes Author Genre Science fiction Novel Publication date 1987 Director John Carpenter | 5.9/10 IMDb 2.5/4 Roger Ebert Country United States Publisher New York: Atheneum Initial release 1992 (South Korea) Budget 40 million USD | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Media type Print (Hardcover) Print (Paperback) Screenplay Dana Olsen, William Goldman, Robert Collector, H.F. Saint Production companies Regency Enterprises, StudioCanal Cast Chevy Chase, Daryl Hannah, Sam Neill, Michael McKean, Stephen Tobolowsky Similar Invisibility movies, Chevy Chase movies, Science fiction movies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Memoirs of an Invisible Man is a 1987 science fiction novel by H. F. Saint.
Contents
Memoirs of an invisible man trailer 1
Synopsis
Nicholas Halloway is a 34-year-old Manhattan securities analyst who writes a narrative memoir (presumably this book) of his life starting on the day of an accident which renders him invisible. He recounts his involvement in a romantic affair with Anne Epstein, a woman who has taken interest in his aptitude for business and is a reporter for the Times. He escorts her to MicroMagnetics where scientists are holding a press conference for research on the magnetic containment of a nuclear process. While there, Nick sees a group of Marxist student protesters who demonstrate nuclear catastrophe by attempting to explode a cat. To get everyone away from the MicroMagnetics presentation, they cut off power to the laboratory where nuclear equipment is operating. The control computers lose function and in a flash of eerie light, everything in a fifty-foot radius becomes invisible, including Nick.
Nick later wakes up in astonishment, believing at first that his limbs were blown off, and later that he is a ghost; he finally realizes the truth. Military personnel control the site and they soon discover Nick's presence. They lose his trust by capturing him. He overhears that they plan to give him to scientists and enlist him for military espionage, disregarding his personal liberty for national security. He loots miscellaneous invisible items, shoots a captor, and sets fire to the building in the process of escaping.
He returns to his apartment and discovers that food remains visible after he eats it, becoming invisible only after being fully digested. He may remain invisible for the rest of his life, and must surmount obstacles that would not affect a visible person, including driving, working, sheltering, etc. While avoiding government agents, he arranges a fake identity and authorizes funds to make himself a millionaire. He places himself in the care of Alice Barlow, a woman in her late twenties.
Characters
Critical reception
The book is the first and only book written by H. F. Saint and is generally well received. Time magazine reviewed it as a "flat-out thriller, accurately described by its narrator-hero on the opening page as 'quite genuinely exciting and superficial'". It is applauded by user reviews for its extreme detail in portraying the difficulties of invisibility which makes it unique among other books sharing an invisibility plot. An editorial review from Publishers Weekly describes the book's dialogue as "absolutely true and suspense sustained at high pitch throughout, this supple fantasy attends so cleverly to plausible elements that it entertains from beginning to end". Although the final publication had good reviews, an early partial draft was rejected from another publisher. Early on, H. F. Saint was devoted to becoming a full-time writer but later retired due to the book's success.
The book has been adapted in a film version for which H.F. Saint received a generous sum, in comparison to other films, of $2.5 million USD in motion picture (from Warner Bros.) and book-club rights. The film had less success than the book, gaining only 24% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 5.8/10 on IMDb.