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The Passenger

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The Passenger

Written by: Cormac McCarthy
Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Julia Whelan
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About this listen

 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The first of a two-volume masterpiece, The Passenger series, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Road • The story of a salvage diver, haunted by loss, afraid of the watery deep, pursued for a conspiracy beyond his understanding, and longing for a death he cannot reconcile with God.

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

"Blends the rowdy humor of some of McCarthy’s early novels with the parched tone of his more apocalyptic later work." —The New York Times

Stella Maris, the second volume in The Passenger series, is available now.

1980, PASS CHRISTIAN, MISSISSIPPI: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wet suit and plunges from the Coast Guard tender into darkness. His dive light 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 flight bag, 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 barrooms 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. Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Fiction Emotionally Gripping Aviation

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Stella Maris Written by: Cormac McCarthy
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I have read most of McCarthy's books and this one is his greatest triumph. It builds off all of his previous works: the profane perambulations of Suttree, the apocalyptic vision of Blood Meridian, the minimalism of the Border Trilogy, the deliberate but pondering pace of No Country, and the deep insight of the nature of love in The Road.

Where this novel excels over it's predecessors is in the it's crafting of dialogue and character creation. All of the characters, even the minor ones feel like real fleshed out human beings with authentic back stories like in a George Eliot novel.

McCarthy has also mastered his dialogue so that philosophical discourses smack of real conversation in a superior way to even Iris Murdoch. His beautiful tracts of descriptive narrative remain intact here describing everything from the Heartland of America, to the controls of a savage ship, to the Andalusian coastline.

It is McCarthy's Brothers Karamazov.

McCarthy's best novel yet.

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I’ve not read the second novel in this series, and do not know how it will augment this novel. But I did not enjoy this nearly as much as Blood Meridian or Suttree. It just seems to be missing that magic I found in listening to those earlier McCarthy tales.

This is no Blood Meridian

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I look forward to the second book in the series because there’s a mystery embedded in the story arc which I need resolution for… Nonetheless I love this book for its poetic eloquence and elegance

Cormac McCarthy is poetic

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McCarthy captures the American idiom perfectly, and unlike in some his works doesn’t overload his story with pretension and portentousness.

My favourite McCarthy novel

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The narrators were excellent and brought a pretty good story to life. Lots of characters were developed though they only had bit parts in the overall story. McCarthy can weave a mundane daily chore/habit into the story line like few others. It wasn’t perfect but I enjoyed the journey.

Excellent performance

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