Passenger (review)

In this gripping sequel to The Marbury Lens, Jack, Conner, Ben, and Griffin try to break the hold that the alternative world of Marbury has on them by shattering the lens, which is the portal that takes them from their homes in Glenbrook, California, to a war-ravaged, hypermasculine landscape of grotesque, diseased Hunters, murderous Rangers, and ragged survivors. Unfortunately, shattering the lens fragments the world itself, and the boys find themselves separated from each other and moving in and out of alternative universes that don’t match up but that all carry the threat of their extinction. Every time Jack looks through the broken lens, he finds himself in a new version of either Glenbrook or Marbury, but something is always askew. Hovering between each passage is the memory of his sexual abuse at the hands of a sadistic predator and his connection with his ancestor Seth, who was hanged as a boy and who appears to him as a ghost with healing powers and unfinished business. These memories and apparitions call into question the status of Marbury itself: is it a real place where the four boys must learn to survive in post-apocalyptic conditions, or a defensive creation of Jack’s own mind as he struggles to come to terms with his rape? Either way, the world itself is studded with the most horrific creatures imaginable, from the slimy black leeches that turn humans into cannibalistic Hunters with horns projecting from their bodies and loincloths made of desiccated body parts, to the Rangers, who are supposedly the good guys but who also sport body-part accessories and conscript young boys to swell their ranks. The grim fascination with Marbury that won’t let the boys go grips readers as well as they, like Jack, become passengers into the darkest corners of a wounded human psyche writ large across layers of a dead landscape. Also like Jack, readers will hope against hope that there is no new adventure to break the illusory and tenuous peace Jack eventually finds. Given Jack’s luck, however, Marbury probably isn’t finished with him.