Since the first season of Fox’s The Passage came to an end on March 11th, now seems to be a good time to revisit the book that started it all – The Passage by Justin Cronin.
The Passage is the first book in a trilogy of epic proportion. It is a post-apocalyptic adventure that I just can’t get enough of. Think: The human population is decimated by an ever-growing group of virals (read: vampires) and a band of friends set out to save the world with the help of one extraordinary little girl. Right?!? What’s not to like about that?
Brad Wolgast is a FBI agent who has been pulled into an unusual role. He and his partner have been tasked with rounding up convicted murderers and taking them… somewhere for a top-secret military experiment. He isn’t given the details and he doesn’t ask questions. He is simply good at his job. Until his new assignment is to bring in a six-year-old girl by the name of Amy Bellafonte.
An orphan, a child, a reminder of his own past – this is something that Wolgast cannot just stand by and accept blindly. In the midst of trying to save Amy from becoming another victim of this experiment, they are forced to run for their lives. Something terrible has happened. The world as they know it has ended. And what is left behind is like nothing they have ever seen. The experiment has unleashed a new life-form, a group of “virals,” upon the world. And the base drive of these virals is to spread far and wide, killing and feeding off of all that they encounter.
Can Wolgast protect Amy? Does she even need protecting? As they fight to find a new path in the post-apocalyptic world around them, Wolgast comes to realise that Amy is different. And that difference might be the key to stopping the chain of events that have been unleashed.
Cronin is a tremendously skilled world-builder in the vein of Stephen King. His characterisation is incredible, as this tale ultimately extends far beyond just the core relationship of Wolgast and Amy. The storylines of multiple groups of characters interweave throughout. Time jumps back and forth between past and present. And through it all, Cronin somehow manages to execute each of these moving parts gracefully. The Passage is a grand tale that echoes atrocities we have faced in the real world and leads the reader to examine how humanity perseveres in the face of evil.
Cronin says that the idea for The Passage began when his daughter asked him to write a book where a girl saves the world. How amazing is that? The Passage spent 3 months on The New York Times bestseller list in 2010 and topped a number of “Best Book of the Year” lists. It was followed by The Twelve in 2012 and then The City of Mirrors to conclude the trilogy in 2016. Cronin is also the author of Mary and O’Neil (2002), which was awarded the Stephen Crane Prize and the PEN/Hemingway Award, as well as The Summer Guest (2005).
Run, don’t walk (because you are almost 9 years late here!), to your favourite bookstore or online seller if you haven’t already. The Passage is not just for fans of dystopian or post-apocalyptic fiction. Each time that I have picked up one of these books, I find myself living in this world with a sweeping cast of characters. This has quickly become one of my all-time favourite series/trilogies.
And if you have not checked out the Fox series starring Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Saniyya Sidney, definitely do that too, but after you read the first book.
Have you read the series or watched the show? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashed the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear – of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.
As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. Wolgast is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors, but for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey – spanning miles and decades – toward the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.
