In The Passage, author Justin Cronin imagines a story in which thegovernment’s creation of vampire-like super-soldiers backfires, leading topost-apocalyptic devastation amid the spawning of modern-day Frankenstein’screatures. As society crumbles, two people flee in search of sanctuary in thistale that chronicles human endurance in the face of catastrophe. A mixture ofscience fiction, horror and adventure recommended by none other than StephenKing, The Passage is a literarythriller written with imagination and masterful prose.
Cronin is the author of Mary and O’Neilwinner of thePEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prizeand The Summer Guest. Cronin, who earned an MFA from the renownedUniversity of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, teaches English at Rice University.
Fellow writer Dan Chaonis the creator of Await Your Reply, achilling examination of three very different strangers whose lives connect inunexpected ways. Await your Reply isan unforgettable analysis of personal identity that questions our veryexistence and the elements that make us who we are. This startling and oftendepressing scrutiny of the American myth of self-reinvention is unveiledthrough each character’s isolated existence in a layered plotline filled with grippingoriginality and riveting suspense.
Await Your Reply is Chaon’s second novel and fourthliterary manuscript. His short story collection, Among the Missing, was a finalist for a National Book Award and hisdebut novel, You Remind Me of Me, wasnamed one of the best books of the year in 2005 by The Boston Globe, ChicagoTribune and a number of other publications. Chaon teaches creative writingat Oberlin College.
Cronin and Chaon willappear at Sugar Maple on June 10 at 7 p.m. in an event sponsored by BoswellBook Co.
