The Passenger

(Hardback)

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'[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. Look for Stella Maris, the second volume in The Passenger series, on sale November 29th, 2022.

Reviews

An appealing piece of work . . . gripping, with plenty of reflection and evocation * Telegraph *
The Passenger is like a submerged ship itself; a gorgeous ruin in the shape of a hardboiled noir thriller . . . What a glorious sunset song . . . Its rich and its strange, mercurial and melancholic * Guardian *
A moving and characteristically disconcerting addition to the oeuvre of one of Americas greatest writers * Irish Times *
[A] gripping story, written in McCarthys trademark acerbic style * i newspaper *
Kafka on the bayou * Observer *
Critics have detected the influence on him of Faulkner and Hemingway, but this is to understate his achievement. The Passenger shows that McCarthy belongs in the company of Melville and Dostoevsky, writers the world will never cease to need * New Statesman *

Author Bio

Cormac McCarthy is one of the most enigmatic and reclusive superstars of the modern literary world. Living and writing from El Paso, Texas, he has shunned all requests for interviews, appearances at bookshops or literary festivals.Nonetheless, he remains one of the most admired writers of the last fifty years. His eight novels have received extraordinary reviews, being hailed as masterpieces of American literature. He has won the American National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award for All the Pretty Horses, the first book of The Border Trilogy.Cormac McCarthy is the author of twelve novels and a play. All his novels are available in Picador editions. He died in June 2023.