Author(s): Cormac McCarthy

General Fiction

'McCarthy writes prose as clean as a bullet cutting through the air and constructs tales as compelling as any you will read' - Telegraph 1980, PASS CHRISTIAN, MISSISSIPPI: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wetsuit and plunges from the boat deck into darkness. His divelight illuminates the sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the crash site are the pilot's flightbag, the plane's black box, and the tenth passenger. But how? A collateral witness to machinations that can only bring him harm, Western is shadowed in body and spirit - by men with badges; by the ghost of his father, inventor of the bomb that melted glass and flesh in Hiroshima; and by his sister, the love and ruin of his soul. Traversing the American South, from the garrulous bar rooms of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness. The Passenger is followed by Stella Maris.

Matilda Bookshop Review

A deep-sea diver by the name of Bobby Western slowly descends into a dark and murky lake searching for the survivors of a plane crash. What he finds beneath those depths just doesn't add up and so begins a twisting tale of a man on the run from the IRS, the deep longing for his beloved and brilliant sister Alicia who has committed suicide and his father who had a major role in creating the atomic bomb. A good chunk of the novel takes place in The French Quarter of New Orleans and is filled with Western's colourful acquaintances telling stories of inequity and wonder. I was surprised at how much I loved the schizophrenic nature of the plot and found myself just jumping along for the dark and wonderful ride. Simon