Review: The Ferryman

The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am having a very difficult time deciding where to plant my feet on this one. I’m stuck between “brilliant” and “chaotic”; “intriguing” and “burdensome”. In the end, I think, perhaps, that the beauty of this novel is that it is everything at once—confusing, engaging, infuriating and heart breaking. The pages are filled with beautiful and prosaic verbiage and riddled with mundane, unnecessary detail. The character development is both pure genius and outlandishly cliche. One minute I was overwhelmed with the gravity of the moment, whilst the next I was swept away in the absolute devastating beauty brought to bear. By the time I turned the final page I was simultaneously exhausted and exhilarated.

Proctor Bennett, the main character and protagonist, is many things, the truth of which changes with dizzying frequency. He is, foremost, however, a visionary in an apocalyptic world, god-like, yet very much Everyman. He is the best of us and the worst of us and calls upon the reader to decide his fate in terms of how history will remember him. Is he a savior or nihilist? Both and neither. The same can be said of each of the major and minor characters with whom he interacts. Don’t expect boxes of black and white into which each person can be comfortably placed. Instead, Cronin inundates us with shades of gray, the discomfort of which is palpable. Themes of the societal expectations of aging, the longevity of the covenant of marriage, the parent/child relationship and the nature of morality are placed under a harsh spotlight, where they are explored, picked to the very bone and left painfully exposed. The final conclusions are, in fact, so jarring that they haunt the reader long after the book is closed.

If you are, thus far, perplexed or bemused by the content of this review, imagine hundreds of pages of the same torrent of contradiction. Cronin takes the reader inside a tornado, lulls one into a false sense of finality when in the eye, then ramps up the speed, changes the cyclonic direction and spins the narrative until the reader is mentally consumed before delivering a powerful conclusion.

The genre is post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, cli-fi, fantasy, romance and domestic noire, with a smattering of mystery, topped with a taste of psychological suspense. Recommended for the mental calisthenics and the beautiful creation of the worlds in which these characters reside. Be prepared afterward, however, for a nice long nap.

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