The family moved to Monument and escaped several close calls with their identities, but Adam's mother is killed in the penultimate chapter in a car collision, with his father fleeing the scene.

The last chapter implies that WPP agents killed Adam/Paul's father and reveals that Paul is regularly interrogated on the topic.

Each time, Paul is unable to handle the realization of his past and embarks on a delusional bike ride across the ground of the facility.

When Cormier sent the manuscript to the publisher of his previous novel, The Chocolate War, he was confused and depressed, convinced that he was alienating his new young adult audience because of the complex and ambiguous story.

[3] WorldCat libraries report holding Danish (1986), Catalan (1987), Spanish (1998), Chinese, Polish, Serbian and Korean-language editions.