Just because Justin Cronin’s mammoth entry into post-apocalyptica, The Passage, doesn’t try to do anything new doesn’t mean it doesn’t have anything to offer. By now we’ve seen 28 Days Later and I Am Legend and know that vampires are made in labs, and having read The Road or The Stand we can find our way through the dystopian landscape.
To overcome the sense of familiarity Cronin tweaks the vampire myth sets much of it in a Wild West and adds a spiritual element reminiscent of the “Dark Christianity” of The Stand and the messianic undertones of Lord of the Rings.
The story revolves around Amy, or “the Girl from Nowhere.” It tells her story, and the story of those whose life purpose seems to be to take her where she needs to go. This includes nuns, rapists, mad scientists, murderers, women with crossbows, Texan militia men, and of course, psychic vampires.
At 800 some odd pages, The Passage literally is not light reading. It takes getting through the first 400 pages of The Passage to realize it’s going to be a journey story, and like Fellowship the Ring or A New Hope, there’s two more volumes to go.
And just like Planet of the Apes or even The Time Machine, The Passage harkens back to the first great disaster of human civilization: The Tower of Babel. When man is closes to reaching heaven, he is bound to fall. But just because you’ve fallen doesn’t mean God wasn’t there all along, guiding you where you need to land.
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