The Passage is a novel by Justin Cronin, published in 2010 by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. The Passage debuted at #3 on the New York Times hardcover fiction best seller list, and remained on the list for seven additional weeks.[1] It is the first novel of a completed trilogy; the second book The Twelve was released in 2012, and the third book The City of Mirrors released in 2016.[2] The novel and its sequels were to be adapted into a film trilogy; however, they were instead developed into a Fox television series.[3]
The Passage begins in the near future and details an apocalyptic and, later, post-apocalyptic world that is overrun by zombie/vampire like beings who are infected by a highly contagious virus. What begins as a project to develop a new immunity-boosting drug based on a virus carried by an unnamed species of bat in South America eventually becomes the virus that transforms the world. The novel begins in 2016 and spans more than ninety years, as colonies of humans attempt to live in a world filled with superhuman creatures who are continually on the hunt for fresh blood.
Development
Cronin first began developing his ideas for The Passage in 2006 when his daughter asked him to write a book about a "girl who saves the world." He set out to write a book that combined elements of multiple genres, most predominantly horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Cronin wanted his vampiric creatures to seem like real-world organisms that might have inspired the vampire stories he knew from his childhood and the vampire-like creatures found in the folklore of numerous cultures. Cronin described writing the book as feeling "natural", and having come "very quickly".[4] Cronin said that the title is a reference to the characters' journeys, and the journey "from life to death". Cronin said that many of the places featured in the novel were selected because they were places he had lived, and that he decided to "travel every mile my characters did, to capture not only the details of place, but the feeling of place."[5]
The novel is broken into 11 parts of varying lengths. The story itself is broken into two sections: the first and shorter section covers the origins of the virus and its outbreak, while the second is set 93 years after the infections, primarily following a colony of survivors living in California. Several narrative devices are used, including email, journal entries, newspaper reports, and other documents. Occasional use is made of reference material from 1,000 years after the outbreak, coming from "The Journal of Sara Fisher", sourced from a future "University of New South Wales, Indo-Australian Republic".
The U.S. government is conducting a top secret experiment referred to as "Project Noah" which involves acquiring and transporting death row inmates to a secret military compound in Colorado, ostensibly for the purposes of testing a drug intended to greatly prolong life. These genetic experiments originate from patient zero, Tim Fanning—one of two surviving members of an expedition investigating a Bolivian bat-carried virus. The virus, while causing hemorrhagic fever and death in those who initially contracted it, results in a boosting of the immune system and enhanced strength and agility in the current subjects. It is later revealed that Project Noah is intended to produce weaponized enhanced humans for the military, described as "the ultimate bunker busters".
The FBI agents responsible for recruiting the prisoners are ordered to collect six-year-old Amy Bellafonte from a convent and deliver her to Dr. Lear, the head of the project. At Noah she is exposed to a refined version of the serum administered to "The Twelve"—the original inmates. Lear theorizes that as Amy's immune system has not had the chance to mature it will form a symbiosis with the virus and live with her symbiotically, instead of the violent forms it has taken with the other twelve.
Of the inmates, the first and last recruited are depicted as being different from the others: Babcock, the original test subject, is stronger and appears to have developed psychic abilities, occasionally influencing his guards and cleaners; and Carter, who was convicted of a first-degree murder he did not intentionally commit.
Zero (AKA Fanning) and the other twelve inmates mentally take control of their guards and escape their quarantine cells, rapidly killing all who stand in their way. Amy is rescued by Brad Wolgast (the FBI agent who brought her to Noah) and Sister Lacey (a nun who was looking after Amy when she was recruited). Lacey is taken by Carter, as Wolgast and Amy escape to a mountain retreat where they live for several months, occasionally picking up news of the contagion spread throughout America. The rest of the world's fate is not stated, but it is mentioned that most European nations have imposed quarantine and closed their borders.
Despite living reasonably comfortably in the mountain site, Wolgast eventually succumbs to radiation sickness when a nuclear device is detonated nearby—he assumes that the government is attempting to sterilize infected areas of the country—and Amy is left to fend for herself.
The novel shifts forward in time approximately 93 years (with occasional reference retrospectively 1,000 years in the future), and the narrative is taken up around a self-sufficient, walled, isolationist colony established by the military in conjunction with FEMA not long after the initial outbreak. The colony is in slow decline, although only one character (a technician called Michael) seems to recognize this; he is trying to establish clandestine radio contact with the outside world to obtain spares for their failing equipment—specifically their batteries which power the high-wattage lights which protect the colony from the virals, who in traditional vampiric style are highly light-sensitive.
During a nighttime attack, Amy arrives at the gates of the camp, having previously met Peter Jaxon (one of the colony's senior figures) during a foraging expedition. Amy's arrival also results in a break-in from the virals leading to the death of "Teacher"—the person responsible for the upbringing of all the children under eight in the colony. Amy now appears to be a fifteen-year-old girl, and upon her arrival is grievously wounded by a crossbow, but her own recuperative powers soon heal her and within days she is as healthy as she was before being injured.
Amy's arrival, her healing abilities, Teacher's death and inner-colony friction (caused by Babcock's mental influence over several Colony figures) force several of the colony dwellers to abscond with Amy and seek out another military site in Colorado—from where Michael has been receiving faint radio signals.
Amy demonstrates a psychic bond with the virals, and manages to keep the group of travelers relatively safe during their journey. They come across another settlement established in a Las Vegas prison, known as the Haven, which, while initially welcoming, is in fact Babcock's lair. The Haven's residents, most under the mental influence of Babcock, "feed" him blood sacrifices in exchange for being left alone by the horde of virals at his disposal, referred to as "The Many" (as opposed to The Twelve).
Theo Jaxon, Peter's brother who had been captured by virals months earlier, has been imprisoned here. Babcock is slowly attempting to grasp hold of his mind to make him a Familiar, but because he does not give in, he is served as a sacrifice. After resisting Babcock's mental influence, Theo and Mausami (his pregnant lover) are rescued by Peter.
During a botched attempt to kill Babcock during one of the monthly blood sacrifice rituals, sympathizers at the Haven enable the group to escape via railroad, and they arrive at a farmstead. Theo and Maus stay behind so that the baby can be born safely while the rest of the group continue on and eventually meet up with a Texan military group, who assist them in finding the Colorado outpost. Once at the outpost, they discover that it is the same compound where the outbreak started, and still serves as home to Sister Lacey. Lacey, like Amy, was treated by Lear with a modified form of the serum, providing her with longer life and a psychic bond with not only Amy and the virals, but Babcock as well.
It is decided to lure Babcock into the outpost—Amy and Lacey confirm that he is headed towards them in any case—where they will detonate a nuclear device originally designed to sterilize the compound, but never used. The group theorize that the virals are like a hive mind and once Babcock is dead his hold over the virals created exponentially by him will cease and they will no longer be a threat. While waiting for Babcock to arrive, the group is attacked, resulting in Alicia ("Lish") becoming infected, and treated by Sara the medic with modified serum. Lacey hands over files on The Twelve, revealing their hometowns, to which she suggests The Twelve will have returned.
Upon Babcock's arrival, Lacey lures him to a chamber where she detonates the bomb, destroying herself, Babcock, and much of the outpost. The attacking virals all collapse and die again, in most cases leaving behind nothing but dust, proving the hive theory correct.
Lish adapts to the virus in a similar manner to Amy and Lacey before her, yet with differences—she has limited psychic abilities, but has the strength and endurance of a viral. Greer, one of the Texan soldiers traveling with them, comments that she would be a formidable soldier—suggesting that Lish has become the first true "super soldier" that the government was trying to develop 93 years ago.
The group return to Theo and Maus at the farmstead, where the baby has been born safely and then they all depart. Part of the group—Amy, Peter, Michael, Greer and Lish—after months of walking, return to the First Colony only to find it deserted, with no sign of what happened or where the colonists may have gone. There are two bodies, a victim of a suicide and that of Auntie, who seemingly died of old age. They decide to hunt down the remaining Twelve using Lear's files to determine their locations, and Lish as their primary weapon. That night Amy meets the infected Wolgast, outside the Colony.
The other group stays with the Texan Expeditionary force, and their remaining story is related through parts of Sara's diary—her last entry is at Roswell Base, and among comments about her own pregnancy she states that she can hear gunshots, and is going to investigate. This entry is presented as part of the future reference material, and is stated to have come from the site of "The Roswell Massacre". The novel ends ambiguously for all surviving characters.
Characters who are a part of the colony adopt unique slang and language over their isolation. These are designed to reinforce the simplicity of life the colonists are forced into - viewing everything in terms of survival and death.
The expression "All Eyes" is commonly used. Its connotations include a simple "be careful," but it is often extended into an expression that stresses deeper concerns and emotional connections. It is frequently used between characters with emotional ties, or comrades who have been on guard / scouting together for many years. It highlights a bond between them and understanding of the vast dangers around them. All Eyes is akin to the expression "keep your eyes open" much of the time. "Flyers" is also prevalent as a form of curse, although current traditional swear words are also used in a normal manner.
The term "gaps" is used interchangeably for pants or trousers, likely derived from the store from which they were foraged.
The protagonist of The Passage is Amy Harper Bellafonte, a child who is infected with a form of the virus and acquires some of the traits of the other infected (e.g. immortality), but does not acquire their bloodlust or their morphology. Despite being the primary protagonist, she is absent from several of the sub-books contained within the novel. Numerous individuals help Amy along her journey, including Brad Wolgast, an FBI agent whose job it is to procure people to be part of an experiment in which participants are infected with the virus, and, decades later, Peter Jaxon, a young man who lives in a tenuously surviving colony. The primary antagonist is the viral known as Babcock, who was a death row inmate before being infected with the virus. Similarly to Amy, he is absent from a significant portion from the middle part of the novel. Babcock and the Twelve also play a significant role in this book and the sequel "The Twelve."
Reception
Mark Medley of the National Post referred to The Passage as "Homeric", calling it "one of the creepiest books of 2010". The review also likened the novel to The Stand and referenced comparisons of Cronin to Michael Crichton.[4]Publishers Weekly criticized Cronin's use of certain "tropes" of the genre, but added that "he manages to engage the reader with a sweeping epic style." Booklist said that the book was so similar to The Stand that it "required some fact-checking to ascertain it was not written under a new King pseudonym." USA Today said that The Passage "could be the best book of the summer." The New York Times Book Review said that The Passage is "A blockbuster…astutely plotted and imaginative".[5] The Los Angeles Times said The Passage is "as stirring as it is epic", and even described a portion of the book as "nearly flawless", though it also describes some of the narration as "portentous and slack".[6] The San Francisco Chronicle selected The Passage as one of the best science fiction and fantasy books of 2010, and describes the book as being "action packed" and "rousing".[7][8]
The book has also been praised by numerous contemporary authors. Stephen King called The Passage "enthralling", and said that "It has the vividness that only epic works of fantasy and imagination can achieve."[9]Dan Chaon called The Passage "hypnotic" and said that "you can’t turn the pages fast enough, and yet... you don’t want it to end."[5]Jennifer Egan said that "Justin Cronin has written a wild, headlong, sweeping extravaganza of a novel. The Passage is the literary equivalent of a unicorn: a bonafide thriller that is sharply written, deeply humane, ablaze with big ideas, and absolutely impossible to put down."[9]Danielle Trussoni called The Passage a "sweeping dystopian epic".[5]
Fox 2000 and Ridley Scott's Scott Free Productions purchased the movie rights to this novel for US$1.75 million in 2007, long before the book was completed.[10]John Logan, writer of Scott's Gladiator (2000), was to write the movie's screenplay. According to Justin Cronin they were first focusing on one movie, but since he already mapped out the other two books, they knew what was coming next and they planned on three movies.[11]
Scott Free eventually determined that the property would better serve as a television series and, in 2016, adapted the book series into a pilot for Fox. The pilot was written by Liz Heldens and produced by Matt Reeves.[3]Jason Ensler directed the pilot; the show began shooting in metro Atlanta in the summer of 2018 and premiered in January 2019 on Fox.[12]Mark-Paul Gosselaar plays Brad Wolgast, and Saniyya Sidney plays 10-year-old Amy Bellafonte.[13]The Passage was cancelled after one season on May 10, 2019.
Related Research Articles
I Am Legend is a 1954 post-apocalyptic horror novel by American writer Richard Matheson that was influential in the modern development of zombie and vampire literature and in popularizing the concept of a worldwide apocalypse due to disease. The novel was a success and was adapted into the films The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971), and I Am Legend (2007). It was also an inspiration for George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968).
Passage, The Passage or Le Passage may refer to:
The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story is a best-selling 1994 nonfiction thriller by Richard Preston about the origins and incidents involving viral hemorrhagic fevers, particularly ebolaviruses and marburgviruses. The basis of the book was Preston's 1992 New Yorker article "Crisis in the Hot Zone".
Gordon Lish is an American writer. As a literary editor, he championed many American authors, particularly Raymond Carver, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel, Rick Bass, Tom Spanbauer, and Richard Ford. He is the father of the novelist Atticus Lish.
Last Human is the title of a 1995 science fiction comedy novel written by Doug Naylor. It is part of the Red Dwarf series of novels, based on the popular television show created by Naylor and his partner Rob Grant. Like the other novels, it does not take place within the television series continuity, but instead adapts situations presented on the series to occur within an alternative universe.
Justin Cronin is an American author. He has written six novels: Mary and O'Neil, The Ferryman, and The Summer Guest, as well as a vampire trilogy consisting of The Passage,The Twelve and The City of Mirrors. He has won the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, the Stephen Crane Prize, and a Whiting Award.
Survivors is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC. It depicts the lives of a group of people who survived a virulent unknown strain of influenza which has wiped out most of the human species. According to the producers, the series is not a remake of the 1970s BBC television series Survivors (1975–1977), created by Terry Nation, but rather is loosely based on the novel of the same name that Nation wrote following the first series of the 1970s programme. Two series were produced of the new show: series 1 ran on BBC One and BBC HD in November–December 2008, and series 2 ran in January–February 2010, ending with a cliffhanger. The BBC announced on 13 April 2010 that due to poor viewing figures Survivors had been cancelled.
Paper Towns is a novel written by John Green, published on October 16, 2008, by Dutton Books. The novel is about the coming-of-age of the protagonist, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen and his search for Margo Roth Spiegelman, his neighbor and childhood crush. During his search, Quentin and his friends Ben, Radar, and Lacey discover information about Margo.
The Strain is a 2009 vampire horror novel by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. It is the first installment in The Strain Trilogy, and was followed by The Fall (2010) and The Night Eternal (2011).
Rabies has been the main plot device or a significant theme in many fictional works. Due to the long history of the virus as well as its neurotropic nature, rabies has been a potent symbol of madness, irrationalism, or an unstoppable plague in numerous fictional works, in many genres. Many notable examples are listed below.
"What Lies Below" is the 12th episode of the second season of the American science fiction drama television series Fringe. Set in a quarantined Boston office building, the episode revolves around a thousands-year-old viral hemorrhagic fever that infects and then influences its victims to attempt to spread the viral particles outside of the building.
Virals is the first novel in the Virals series of novels for young adults written by the American forensic anthropologist and crime writer, Kathy Reichs, and her son Brendan Reichs, featuring Tory Brennan, great-niece of Temperance Brennan.
The Twelve is a 2012 horror novel by Justin Cronin and is the second novel in The Passage trilogy, following the novel The Passage. The Twelve was published on October 16, 2012 by Ballantine Books. The trilogy was concluded with the publishing of The City of Mirrors, which was released in 2016.
Lish McBride is an American writer of urban fantasy. Her first book was Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, a young-adult novel about a fast-food fry cook who learns he is a necromancer. It won a 2011 Washington State Book Award and was a finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award. Her second novel, Necromancing the Stone, was released in September 2012.
The Passage is a novel series by Justin Cronin. There are three published books in the series. The film rights were acquired by Fox Entertainment Group in 2007 for adaptation into a film trilogy, but after 12 years of development and planning, it was changed to a television series, which premiered in January 2019 and was canceled after the first season.
The City of Mirrors is a 2016 horror novel by Justin Cronin and is the final novel in The Passage trilogy, following the novel The Twelve. The City of Mirrors was released for publication on May 24, 2016 by Ballantine Books.
The bat virome is the group of viruses associated with bats. Bats host a diverse array of viruses, including all seven types described by the Baltimore classification system: (I) double-stranded DNA viruses; (II) single-stranded DNA viruses; (III) double-stranded RNA viruses; (IV) positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses; (V) negative-sense single-stranded RNA viruses; (VI) positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses that replicate through a DNA intermediate; and (VII) double-stranded DNA viruses that replicate through a single-stranded RNA intermediate. The greatest share of bat-associated viruses identified as of 2020 are of type IV, in the family Coronaviridae.
Biological warfare (BW)—also known as bacteriological warfare, or germ warfare—has had a presence in popular culture for over 100 years. Public interest in it became intense during the Cold War, especially the 1960s and '70s, and continues unabated. This article comprises a list of popular culture works referencing BW or bioterrorism, but not those pertaining to natural, or unintentional, epidemics.
The Passage is an American thriller television series based on the trilogy of novels by Justin Cronin. It spans years in the life of Amy Bellafonte, as she moves from being manipulated in a government conspiracy to protecting humankind in a post-apocalyptic vampire future. The series premiered on January 14, 2019. The Passage was cancelled after one season on May 10, 2019.
Brianne Nicole Howey is an American actress. She had main roles in the Fox series The Exorcist (2016) and The Passage (2019). She had a recurring role in the first season of The CW's superhero drama Batwoman (2019–2020) as Reagan Pye. As of 2021, she stars as Georgia Miller in the Netflix comedy-drama Ginny & Georgia (2021–present).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
