The Ferryman by Justin Cronin (Orion, £22)
The new novel from the author of The Passage could hardly be more different in tone and setting from that acclaimed horror trilogy. The island of Prospera provides an idyllic existence for the fortunate inhabitants, who display no curiosity about the wider world and accept having no children as the price of immortality: in old age they are ferried to the “Nursery”, from which they return, young again and memory-wiped, to start over. The reader is given plenty of hints that there’s more to this reality than the characters believe, but there are 500 pages to go before the mind-boggling reveal. That’s not the end: Cronin is far too good a writer to hang his compelling tale on a single twist. What lingers in the mind are not so much the turns of plot as the issues explored: about society, human nature, and above all what it means to live a good life.
