A man wakes up on a Baltimore City bus with no memory of who he is, where he is going, or what has happened to him. His head is recently shaved. His clothes appear new. And written on the palm of one hand is an address. Passenger is a haunting journey of discovery, where the protagonist stumbles through Baltimore's crumbling streets and a collection of strangely wonderful characters in search of his identity. Yet the more he tries to uncover the mystery of his past, the more he learns it has been hidden from him for a reason.
Passenger
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More About the Author
Ronald Malfi is the award-winning author of the novels Floating Staircase, Snow, The Ascent, and several others. Most recognized for his haunting, literary style and memorable characters, Malfi's dark fiction has gained acceptance among readers of all genres. He currently lives along the Chesapeake Bay where he is at work on his next book.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Experience The Weirdness of Not Knowing Who You Are.,
By
This review is from: Passenger (Paperback)
Another great release from Delirium. Ronald Damien Malfi not only has a creepy name that sounds like he's a deranged serial killer that no one can capture, but the guy can spin an excellent tale of how strange and scary it would be to wake up and not know who you are.
The story starts out with its narrator waking up on a bench with his head shaved and only an address written on his hand. He doesn't know who he is, where he came from, or whether or not he committed some terrible crime and if the police are after him. He's afraid to go to the police because he might be wanted, deciding to wander around the city of Maryland. Along the way he meets some interesting characters in his search to find out who he really is. Strange things are found out by the nameless man: he can play the piano, and not just a few keys, the guy can really play; he's drawn to a gumball machine that he buys, and is attracted to a church for reasons he doesn't know yet. Malfi's writing is amazing. His ability to drag you right into each paragraph and hold you there like you are the wandering man with no name, is creepy in itself. His descriptions are about as flawless as you can get, making you feel like you're right in the book the whole way through. This book is only 221 pages, and once you start, you will not be able to put it down. If you don't finish it in one sitting, you will by the next day. I can't imagine anyone needing more than two days to read through this one. Don't let this book slip by you. Horrordude.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The past is unrelenting, but so is our will,
By
This review is from: Passenger (Paperback)
Which struggle is greater? To find lost memory or to lose a memory found? To do either, how far backward would a person have to go and how much of present living would be sabotaged in the process? These are the sad and cyclical questions eventually confronted by the protagonist in Passenger by Ronald Damien Malfi. But to say too much on that would be to reveal what the reader begs to have answered throughout the entire reading. After waking on a bus with only an address scrawled on his hand and no memory of his identity, the protagonist begins his search for a past. The book rides swiftly on constant odd and disturbing revelations, as well as on the crazy, sometimes funny, sometimes brutal adventures the protagonist has with the lively, oddball characters who take him in: Clarence the junk collector who believes that lives, like junk, can be recycled; Patrice, the married woman he takes home, who questions whether life is ever free and clear; the musician brothers who let him play in their murdered brother's place, with clear stipulation that he is not Johnny, "ain't nobody replace Johnny." Malfi makes the city of Baltimore alive, with the kinds of descriptions that make me leave my world for another, but it's a place where buildings are "arthritic," "black avenues lie unrealized," shops carry both "iron bars and welcome signs," and "neon sings ... in puddles of runoff and sewage and urine and oil." Everywhere in this city, memory haunts the protagonist's amnesic mind. The past feels tangible, yet fragile: walking through the "Egyptian dust" of the pawn shop he encounters "ceramic cats placed strategically like land mines," a piano with missing keys, the owner with suspenders hanging loose. Like Clarence with his junk, it seems time is being recycled, and history repeats itself. But despite the character's dedicated, willful search, he seems to be on a downward spiral, as if with each step closer to memory, his life disintegrates. At one point the character asks, has anyone ever died from amnesia, "from memory alone?" And when he seeks refuge in a church, the cancer-ridden, "fossilized" nun tells him he is "skin and bones" and looks like a shadow of himself, suggesting maybe he doesn't want to find his memory at all. At one point, he asks, "Can I be happy?" and it hits hard, like both a universal quest and an eternal frustration. Can we be happy with whatever lies deep in us, even if memory were erased and regrets forgotten? Or is memory rooted deep and inescapable? Malfi's book is a puzzle, a page-turning, stay-up-all-night kind of puzzle. The past haunts and the past warns, and I'm left wondering if a clean slate can ever be found.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A used story line, but still some excellent writing skills,
By
This review is from: Passenger (Paperback)
This book has some excellent writing, and one can tell the skill of the author. But I didn't care for it, as it was extremely similar in style to the movie Memento. In fact the beginnings and endings were almost identical. But in between it tells its own story, and that was enjoyable to follow. If I had never seen the movie I would have liked this book a lot, as its written well, but I couldn't get the similarities between the movie and the story out of my head and I ended up disliking the story. The author needs to come up with something more original next time out because he has the skill.
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