The Passage, by Justin Cronin

Posted by Megsly in Book Reviews, Fantasy, Literary Fiction, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Vampires | 3 comments

The Passage, by Justin Cronin

reviewed by Megsly

It seems like in today’s literary world, we’re completely wrapped up in the romanticized vampire…ya know, Edward, Stefan, Damon, Lestat…the ever sexy Carpathian men, Wrath and Zsadist and their entire orgy-worthy brotherhood (just the mention of the brotherhood makes me drool…just saying, ladies.) It seems like all the vampires we read about now are the ones we want to take home to meet our mothers…or at least take home to curl up in bed with. But what ever happened to the real vampire? The ones nightmares were made of? The ones you wished you’d never heard of (and the ones you definitely do not want in your bed?)

Justin Cronin knows where they are. They are lurking in the dark depths of his novel, The Passage, which is the first in his trilogy. To be honest, I never would read this book on my own, as I’m so wrapped up in the romanticized vampire that I can barely think of anything else. However, this book came as a recommendation from a friend who has never steered me wrong in book selection. I trust her without a second’s reservation, so when she mentioned it to me, I ran over to Amazon and ordered it within minutes and have been completely wrapped within Cronin’s dark, post apacolyptic world ever since. I’m trying to remain as spoiler free while discussing this book, but it will be hard to do, so read ahead at your own risk (though you should definitely purchase this book and read it, regardless if you read ahead or not.)

The first thing that impressed me with The Passage was the sheer size of it. This is a real book, guys! A thick one, so make sure you have time available for it! It is a length that promises adventure, that told me that this was a real story and from page one I was totally entranced. It takes place a few years into the future. The Passage starts off with a young waitress who’s fallen on rough times and has to turn to less than pleasurable means to support herself and her six year old daughter. One thing leads to another, and the young mother finds herself in a situation where she knows the right thing to do is to leave her daughter behind, abandoning her with some nuns. Little Amy never speaks, but shows that she’s incredibly intelligent in the first days she’s with the sisters, wrapping them around her fingers, but little does anyone know that the government wants Amy for their own benefits. A couple of days into Amy’s stay with the sisters, two FBI agents show up at their doorstep, requesting that Amy accompany them.

At the time that the agents ask for Amy, she is on a trip to the zoo local zoo down the street with the nun who originally took her in. Complete insanity follows (insanity that blew my mind and left me wondering exactly what the purpose of this little girl was—you’ll have to read to find out!) and before I knew it, Amy was being zipped off with the two FBI agents into the great unknown.

Cronin jumps around a bit, from character to character, and effortlessly merges various story lines into one. The first few chapters are dedicated to Amy and Walgast, one of the agents who took her from the nuns, and who’s come to care for her as a daughter, and then suddenly your zapped into the story of a convicted murderer facing his own impending death who’s also been taken by FBI agents. Where are they all going? Strangely enough…Colorado. But why? Apparently, after returning from a “Last Wish” vacation to the jungles of South America, an entire group of terminally ill cancer patients were magically cured by a flu like virus they had contracted while in the jungle. The government, of course, takes advantage of this and is conducting experiments that use that virus to turn people (the previously mentioned murderers) into biological weapons.

This is the point in the novel where the book starts to get a life of it’s own, for me. It goes from being something I can read, to becoming something I’m envisioning in my mind. These creatures that the governement has created are the creatures nightmares are made of. They’re large and intelligent and very observant, with rows and rows of razor sharp teeth. They can move faster than you can blink and jump higher than feasible. What does Amy and the convicted murderer have to do with these creatures? They’re destined to become them.

And of course, in the typical fashion of human stupidity, someone along the way screws up and the vampire creatures are suddenly let loose. Cue instant blood bath of epic proportions! Anything that moves and breaths is devoured quickly, and somehow Amy, and the FBI agent who delivered her to the compound escape, but not before Amy was subjected to testing and exposed to the lethal virus that had changed the convicts tested before her. Strangely enough, Amy doesn’t change other than she develops a sensitivity to light. Anyone else exposed to the virus begins to change into the creatures. Sometimes it seems like the creatures instantly kill their prey, and sometimes it seems as if they merely expose them to the virus, increasing their numbers at a near exponential rate. Either way, between the virus and the creatures it spawns, we—as a people—are doomed.

Amy and Agent Walgast escape to the remote mountains, to a campground that the FBI agent had enjoyed as a boy and one he knows has been abandoned for years and is hopefully remote enough to avoid any contamination by the quickly spreading virus. At this point, they lose contact with the outside world and months pass with them learning nothing about what is really happening. What is happening, is far worse than any apocolypse ever anticipated. The virus has decimated the United States, Jumpers, as the creatures are called, have turned humans into the minority, and eventually they find their way up to Amy and the Agent.

Cronin then makes a massive leap in time, fast forwarding nearly a century to introduce us to a small settlement of surviving humans who are struggling to make it. They live a very strict life, each person having specific roles they play in the community to ensure that they survive. The jumpers avoid the sunlight (any form of light really) though they seem to be adapting and are beginning to make group attacks on the community, usually in pods of threes. The town is surrounded by a wall too tall for the Jumpers to jump, and at night they illuminate the area in bright lights to prevent any of the creatures from even trying to get in, but they’re facing a serious problem…they’re batteries are holding less and less of a charge, and eventually will fail and once the lights go out, everyone will die. And even so, the Jumpers themselves are beginning to change, braving sunlight (though they stick to the shadows) and some showing tufts of hair on their body, something they previously had none of, attacking more frequently and in more organized, planned assaults. The world as humans know it, is continuing to change and though the mass population may not know of the impending doom, the characters we follow in the story line are very much aware of it.

Every once in a while, during an expedition out of the town limits for supplies from the remains of the towns that had once stood nearby, someone would be taken by the Jumpers, and the town never knew if they would return as a jumper or if they would die. A vigil would take place, and for once you see something that seems like a tiny glimmer of humanity within the Jumpers. If one returned, they would linger outside of the town walls in the dark of night, simply staring, and the Watchers (those who stand on the wall and keep a watch out for Jumpers attacking at night) would elaborate on how they seemed thankful in the last seconds before someone shot them through the sternum, their one weak spot. It leaves you wondering just what happens to a human when they’re contaminated by the virus. Do they die and become soulless shells, or are they still in there somewhere, witness to the carnage their own body creates.

The members of the town have little hope. They know of no other surviving settlements, have had no other contact with humans, and have no reason to believe that they are not the last of the human species, until a lone teenage girl emerges from the shadows one day, untouched by the jumpers with strange healing powers and completely obliterates everything the community once believed. Will they be able to save their kind? And who is this girl who can seemingly control the jumpers and heals from lethal wounds in mere hours? You’ll have to read on to find out more, and this is all introduced in the first half of the book. There is so much more action and adventure afterwards and I implore you to take a break from the romanticized vampire and give Cronin’s dark world a try. I promise you won’t be disappointed!

Cronin’s command of the English language leaves me riveted and clinging to his every word, and his character development astounds me. He finds a way to turn these characters into someone you can’t help but feel compassion and love for in an insanely short span of time. There’s so much going on in this book and he effortlessly ties in each occurance to the other, creating a vast image that is flawless and so deliciously dark. The only downpoint is that it’ll be another two years before the second book in the series is release, but I’ll wait patiently, because I must know what happens next!