THE FERRYMAN by Justin Cronin

THE FERRYMAN

Justin Cronin (justincroninbooks.com)

Orion (orionbooks.co.uk)

£22

Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop

The archipelago of Prospera exists in blissful isolation from the rest of the world, enclosed in a bubble that keeps whatever is going on “out there” away from the utopian lives of those lucky enough to live here. On Prospera proper, the people live a life of wealth and luxury. They work, but only because it stimulates them. They cannot reproduce; instead, when they reach the end of their lives, they are taken to the archipelago’s smallest island, the remote and forbidding Nursery, where they are “rebooted” and returned to the island as a fresh, new Prosperan. The third island is the Annex, where the people who serve the Prosperans live — their maids and gardeners, who do not have the luxury of immortality and who are beginning to ask difficult questions and refusing to show up for work. Proctor Bennett is a ferryman, who escorts retired Prosperans to the Nursery when their time is up. When he is called upon to escort his father on his final journey, Proctor’s world changes forever. As his life falls apart, and he feels like he is losing his mind, he discovers that the truth behind Prospera is not at all what he suspected, and may be the key to the future of humanity.

“The world is not the world.”

Like many genre readers, I discovered Justin Cronin with the release of his seminal “vampire” novel, The Passage, in 2010 (Stephen King mentioned it in his “Pop of King” column in Entertainment Weekly about a year earlier leaving me, and many others, on tenterhooks for the duration). Three game-changing novels later and it’s probably safe to say I’m something of a fanboy. So, cue much excitement when I heard the news of The Ferryman several months ago. Cronin’s first novel since 2016’s final Passage novel, The City of Mirrors, is something of an event, and I’m sure I’m not the only fan who has been anticipating this new epic tome. Well, I’m here to tell you that the wait is well worth it. It’s a completely different beast to The Passage (though there are points where you wonder if it might not be taking place in the same world), a much more science fiction/post-human tale than the straight-up horror of its predecessors. And while I may be wrong, I get the sense upon reading that this is more of a one-book deal, so enjoy Proctor Bennett and the world of Prospera while you can.

Proctor Bennett, the book’s eponymous hero, is our guide for much of this tale, with the odd chapter here and there devoted to points of view other than his, or to events for which he is absent. Things begin to wobble almost immediately as Proctor goes for a swim and meets a strange – though strangely familiar – teenage girl with a scarred face and a moody temperament. Almost immediately following this, he is called upon to act as ferryman for his father, Malcolm, who is taking voluntary retirement. While en route to the ferry that will take him to the Nursery, he utters the strange phrase, “The world is not the world,” which acts as the catalyst for what looks, at first glance, to be a slow descent into madness for his son. Proctor’s dreams – unusual amongst Prosperans in the first place – become more vivid and seem to show him a world that could not exist.

While Proctor slides slowly into madness Thea Dimopolous, a Prosperan art gallery owner, takes a trip to the Annex where she meets with a group who seem to form the core of an underground movement. Many in the Annex are looking to Arrivalism for answers and have started to mutter about general strikes in an effort to get better lives for themselves and their families. Over time Thea and Proctor will become inextricably linked and their focus will turn towards the bubble’s wall, and what lies beyond.

Cronin’s new novel seems, at first glance, to be a sociological examination of the abyss between the haves and the have-nots. But there’s something much more insidious going on here, and the more we see of the world outside of Proctor’s influence, the more it becomes clear that Proctor might be the only innocent on the entire island. It is an examination of paradise, and how paradise is built on the blood, sweat and tears not of the people who live in it, but of the people who serve them, the people who have nothing so others can have everything. It’s about how one man’s paradise is another man’s police state, and about the lies we tell ourselves to ensure that we have a happy life, regardless of who might be affected. But in the end, it’s about so much more than that, things that I can’t even hint at for fear of spoiling it for other readers. It’s about identity and the power of dreams and hope. It is, at times, a deeply affecting novel that will leave you cold and sad; it will make you despair for the future of our race; and it will fill you with hope that sometimes people aren’t as black-and-white as they might first appear. Sometimes all on the same page.

If The Passage trilogy taught us anything, it’s that Justin Cronin can write. Like its predecessors, The Ferryman is a genre novel with a distinctly literary underpinning. Despite the fantastical setting and almost retro-futuristic feel of this utopian world, these are people we can identify with, in whose skin we can live for the duration of the story. It’s testament to Cronin’s skills as a writer that we don’t witness Proctor’s seeming descent into madness so much as experience it, live it. These are characters in whom, despite how short a time we’ve known them, we can identify some small portion of ourselves, and whose motivations are instantly recognisable. This is a world that feels real, and which has rules that, while odd, give us a realistic set of expectations for how things operate. Proctor Bennett is a character that will stay with us long after The Ferryman has ended and, while it seems unlikely that we’ll see him again, there’s always that slight possibility.

The Ferryman has been much too long in coming, but it is well worth the seven-year wait since Cronin’s last novel. It’s full of the intelligence and wit that made us fall in love with Cronin’s writing in the first place, and of characters who feel like old friends even after such short acquaintance. It’s a hefty tome, but it feels like a much shorter novel, a real rollercoaster that will leave you gasping for more. Maybe in a few years we can have a proper chat about this incredible novel without fear of spoilers, but for now you’ll just have to take my word for it: this is Justin Cronin showing, once again, that nobody does it better. Whether you read and enjoyed The Passage trilogy or not, you should make sure The Ferryman is one of your 2023 reads. It’s unlikely you’ll find a more intense, engaging, entertaining novel this year. Now we just have to hope it’s not another seven-year wait…