Anybody who follows popular fiction has most certainly heard by now about “The Passage”. It was big news before it was even available (hell, the movie rights were sold for a cool $1.75 million before Justin Cronin had even written it) and became even bigger news once it fell into the hands of book critics and customers, not to mention its debut at #3 on the New York Times Bestseller List for Hardcover Fiction.
So there’s been a lot of buzz. But it’s not for everyone. If you’re thinking about giving it a go, you’d better be in for the long haul because this is no beach read; it’s best described as pretty darn lengthy at 766 pages. I surmised when I began this book in June that it would comprise all of my summer reading and I was correct in my assumptions – it took me a little over two months. I’m sure there are others who read it in far less time (those people probably don’t have young children, spouses or extracurricular activities of any kind) but I enjoyed the fact that it wasn’t over with as soon as it began, as most novels can feel sometimes (250-300 page average).
“The Passage” is also epic in its span, containing a vastly detailed story divided into 11 parts and a postscript that will have readers wondering just how soon the next book in this planned trilogy will be published.
It all begins in 2012 with an introduction to some major and minor players and a glimpse into the small and seemingly insignificant thing that will unravel the world: a virus. Cronin was smart to play on this common paranoia, as fear-mongering has become customary within the American media. Every week, month or year, it seems, the public hears about and grows afraid of some new and virulent strain of flu or other virus or bacteria and the potential it has for pandemic proportions. The virus of this book might even have some people wondering about a bat’s potential as a vector for disease but more importantly it will fascinate them because it crosses over into the tired territory of vampires and makes it all fantastically new again, particularly by making it part of the larger theme of post-apocalyptic survival.
The first 246 pages end in a magnificent jolt – the reader glimpses the end of the world with the inception of the outbreak, the flash of a nuclear bomb and a 6-year old girl who, inoculated with a perfected version of the virus that is causing widespread chaos, cannot die. What will happen to her? How will she possibly survive?
Cronin refuses to answer that question just yet, taking us instead nearly 100 years into the future to a colony of survivors in California who have created a new world order for themselves. They are surviving off the power of turbines to keep the horde of superhuman vampiric creatures that now roam far and wide (known as “virals”) out of their compound. We get to know key characters fairly well (others only get surface descriptions) along with how the colony came to be and it is only after another 100 pages that Amy (the girl) reenters the picture. Houston, we have lift-off.
From Part V (The Girl From Nowhere) all the way to the very end, it is a wild and dangerous expedition for everyone, replete with love, sacrifice, violence, death and destruction. Some characters are fleshed out and become a bigger part of what is to come and some are lost and either found later or never recovered. Cronin’s writing is slick, well-paced and provides plenty of character development for the important members of his vast cast (it’s dizzying how many people he introduces throughout the entire book – a character index and a family tree of the colony would’ve been helpful). There are very few flashbacks or drawn-out personal histories to hinder the book’s pacing –small but important details about people and places are adroitly fit in as events unfold, rarely disturbing his narrative. He ties it all up with an ending that more than suggests that the journey for the characters that we have come to know is far from over.
Though I very much enjoyed “The Passage”, it is not without flaws. From the beginning (even before she is infected) it is implied that Amy is special, somehow different from normal people, but the reason(s) for it are never explained (the zoo scene where she says that the animals know “what I am” is the initial teaser). It isn’t even explained why the military is looking for her and wants her for their experiment. Perhaps those reasons will come to light in the next book but they never make an appearance in this one and that can be a real thorn in the side of some readers. The other is the loosely documented time frame – any semblance of accurate dating (and Cronin is a little vague about the current year at the beginning of the book anyway) gets thrown out the window once the apocalypse starts. It’s understandable that time would get lost in the chaos but it makes it hard to tell exactly when in time it might be and how much time has really passed between pre and post-epidemic. The clock essentially starts over and days are literally numbered in journal entries (Day 14, Day 15, etc.) without indication of month or year, so for anyone trying to either lightly or thoroughly discern exactly when in the world it is, it can really drive a distractive wedge into the story for them.
Love it, hate it – it cannot be denied that “The Passage” has made a dent in the literary world that will long be felt by everyone who hears of it and/or reads it. Though it contains shades of other works (notably “The Stand”), it somehow manages to put itself in a class all its own, setting a new standard for genre fiction, and is a book that writers old and new will seek to imitate in the hopes of surpassing it.
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