An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival, The Passage is the story of Amy—abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions.
But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl—and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape—but he can’t stop society’s collapse. And as Amy walks alone, across miles and decades, into a future dark with violence and despair, she is filled with the mysterious and terrifying knowledge that only she has the power to save the ruined world.
Detailed Plot Summary - Contains Spoilers
The time: now. The place: close to home. The outlook: apocalyptic. America is in crisis and under siege. Costly, ill-advised foreign wars have exhausted the military and divided the country. Multiple terrorists have struck at the heart of the homeland. Hurricane Vanessa—far more devastating than its predecessor, Katrina—has reduced New Orleans to a toxic, crime-ridden swamp. The tentacles of a vast state security apparatus now extend into the private lives...
The Passage: Q & A with Justin Cronin
What prompted you to write The Passage?
Several answers, really, and I could probably write a book just about that. The first thing that happened was that in the fall of 2005, my daughter, age nine, asked if she could join me on my daily run on her bicycle. I’m a dad, and hanging out with Iris is one of the great pleasures of my life, so of course I said...
The Passage: Discussion Questions
1. The book opens in the very near future, only several years from now. Is Cronin’s portrait of 2018 believable? Does the state of society resemble anything that we might reasonably foresee occurring?
2. Does the military make the right choice in undertaking Noah? When so much of society is under constant threat of violence, is there a moral imperative to do whatever is scientifically possible to save the country from...
Read an Excerpt
Wolgast had been to the Compound only once, the previous summer, to meet with Colonel Sykes. Not a job interview, exactly; it had been made clear to Wolgast that the assignment was his if he wanted it. A pair of soldiers drove him in a van with blacked out windows, but Wolgast could tell they were taking him west from Denver, into the mountains. The drive took six hours, and by the time they pulled into the Compound, he’d actually managed to fall asleep. He stepped from the van into the bright sunshine of a summer afternoon. He stretched and looked around. From the topography, he’d have guessed he was somewhere around Telluride. It could have been further north. The air felt thin and clean in his lungs; he felt the dull throb of a high-altitude headache at the top of his skull.
He was met in the parking lot by a civilian, a compact man dressed in jeans and a khaki shirt rolled at the sleeves, a pair of old-fashioned aviators perched on his wide, faintly bulbous nose. This was Richards.
“Hope the ride wasn’t too bad,” Richards said as they shook hands. Up close Wolgast saw that Richards’ cheeks were...
Praise
“[A] blockbuster.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Mythic storytelling.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Magnificent... Cronin has taken his literary gifts, and he has weaponized them.... The Passage can stand proudly next to Stephen King’s apocalyptic masterpiece The Stand, but a closer match would be Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: a story about human beings trying to generate new hope in a world from which all hope has long since been burnt.” —Time
“The type of big, engrossing read that will have you leaving the lights on late into the night.” —The Dallas Morning News
“Addictive.” —Men’s Journal
“Cronin’s unguessable plot and appealing characters will seize your heart and mind.” —Parade
“Cronin has given us what could be the best book of the summer. Don’t wait to dive into The Passage.” —USA Today
“Great storytelling... vital, tender, and compelling.” —O: The Oprah Magazine
“Cronin gets it just right; the combination of attentive realism and doomsday stakes makes for a mesmerizing experience.” —Salon
“Magnificently unnerving... A The Stand-meets-The Road journey.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Imagine Michael Crichton crossbreeding Stephen King’s The Stand and Salem’s Lot in that lab on Jurassic Park, with rich infusions of Robert McCammon’s Swan Song, Battlestar Galactica and even Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.” —The Washington Post
