Publication

2022-10-25 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York, USA

Language

English

Word Count

95,750 words, Guess

Page Count

383 pages

Physical Format

Hardcover

Identifiers

  • Open LibraryOL37848017M
  • ISBN-139780307268990
  • ISBN-100307268993

Description

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.

First Sentence

It had snowed lightly in the night and her frozen hair was gold and crystalline and her eyes were frozen cold and hard as stones.

Subjects

Places

Wartburg (Tenn.)Los Alamos (N.M.)Knoxville (Tenn.)New Orleans (La.)Pass Christian (Miss.)

People

John Sheddan (fictional character)Bobby Western (fictional character)Alicia Western (fictional character)Debussy Fields (fictional character)The Thalidomide Kid (fictional character)

Reader Reviews

No reviews yet for this book.

Be the first to share your thoughts!