Lethal bats attack, crossbows get unloaded, rogue operatives blow up small-town civilians and death-row inmates are recruited as guinea pigs for a top-secret medical experiment. “The Passage” also has a memorable ending (more on that later), but otherwise would seem to share little with “Mary and O’Neil,” which could fit inside its pages several times over.

The cumulative effect, on the final page, is an overwhelming surge of emotion. The book leapfrogs through time, each narrative at once discrete and integral to the larger picture. That ingeniously elliptical novel-in-stories is the epitome of the quiet literary work, populated with well-meaning characters whose lives hinge on grief and love. Whether the transformation takes is one of the tantalizing aspects of “The Passage.”Ĭronin’s pre-”Passage” career isn’t as well-known as McCarthy’s pre-”Road” oeuvre was, though his debut, “Mary and O’Neil,” won the 2002 PEN/Hemingway Prize. Justin Cronin’s ample vampire-virus saga “The Passage” also presents a vivid eschatology, while its title indicates an even more profound transformation of one sort of literary sensibility into another.

Should die-hard fans of a genre (in this case science fiction) be honored or annoyed when an interloper wanders onto their creative territory? The title of McCarthy’s book indicates the path its father-and-son protagonists follow, but it might also symbolize the author’s journey from revered offshoot of the Melville-Hemingway-Faulkner axis to de facto practitioner of end-of-the-world lit. Chosen for both the Pulitzer Prize and coverage on “Oprah,” Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel “The Road” regularly appears in debates over genre carpetbagging.

Justin cronin the passage trilogy