O's 2010 Summer Reading List
Lush historical novels, wise contemporary tales, thrillers that will scare the dickens out of you. (And speaking of Dickens, we've got him, too.)
16 of 20
The Passage
By Justin Cronin
784 pages;
Ballantine
Part apocalyptic tale, part allegory, and all great storytelling, Justin Cronin's The Passage
is a genre-whirling novel that includes such characters as a
PTSD-scarred African nun, a female warrior with a heart of titanium, and
a villain who threatens victims through their dreams. The novel—the
first volume in a planned trilogy—begins with a desperate woman
abandoning her little girl, Amy, at a convent. Amy winds up in the care
of an FBI agent named Wolgast and the pair must flee the "virals"—humans
turned vampires during a military experiment gone awry. For all the
semihuman characters and disastrous military subterfuge, The Passage
is ultimately a very long novel about a young woman's journey to
understanding herself: "Amy felt their sorrow, but it was different now.
It was a holy soaring. A thousand recollected lives were passing
through her, a thousand thousand stories—of love and work, of parents
and children, of duty and joy and grief...." Let others quibble over
whether The Passage is thriller or literature; we see it as vital, tender, and compelling.
— Bethanne Patrick
Published 06/17/2011