The Ferryman by Justin Cronin – Review

Published: May 2, 2023

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Series: N/A

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 560 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 4 Stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
Founded by the mysterious genius known as the Designer, the archipelago of Prospera lies hidden from the horrors of a deteriorating outside world. In this island paradise, Prospera’s lucky citizens enjoy long, fulfilling lives until the monitors embedded in their forearms, meant to measure their physical health and psychological well-being, fall below 10 percent. Then they retire themselves, embarking on a ferry ride to the island known as the Nursery, where their failing bodies are renewed, their memories are wiped clean, and they are readied to restart life afresh.

Proctor Bennett, of the Department of Social Contracts, has a satisfying career as a ferryman, gently shepherding people through the retirement process–and, when necessary, enforcing it. But all is not well with Proctor. For one thing, he’s been dreaming–which is supposed to be impossible in Prospera. For another, his monitor percentage has begun to drop alarmingly fast. And then comes the day he is summoned to retire his own father, who gives him a disturbing and cryptic message before being wrestled onto the ferry.

Meanwhile, something is stirring. The Support Staff, ordinary men and women who provide the labor to keep Prospera running, have begun to question their place in the social order. Unrest is building, and there are rumors spreading of a resistance group–known as “Arrivalists”–who may be fomenting revolution.

Soon Proctor finds himself questioning everything he once believed, entangled with a much bigger cause than he realized–and on a desperate mission to uncover the truth.

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Have you ever begun reading a book and thought to yourself, “something is just not right here”? That’s exactly the thought I had as I began reading The Ferryman and that feeling continued to strengthen until the big secret was revealed. I was gleeful to find that I had almost predicted the twist and continued to read with much delight because the book actually goes on to resolve many of the questions The Big Twist brought up.

The book follows Proctor Bennett from his arrival on a ferry from the Nursery at the age of sixteen to his adult life where he’s risen to the rank of Director, a senior Ferryman. The Ferrymen are those who gather up the individuals who’ve gotten close to the end of their lives and return them to the Nursery where they can be reborn and live life anew. The island of Prospera seems an almost utopian place where people never truly die, but the residents can never pass the Veil and leave to the outside world. All those who have passed the Veil have never been heard from again. Proctor has always enjoyed his job, up until he’s escorting his father to the ferry and the man flees in fear and as Proctor hauls him back, whispers “It’s all Oranios”. This, accompanied by the guilt and trauma he feels from his father’s final journey, gnaws at Proctor until his very life begins to unravel at an alarming speed.

I spent the first half of this book highly intrigued and speculating about where exactly this story was going to end up. Proctor was a successful man until the stressors of his life began to catch up with him and he started looking into the mysterious Oranios. He made some absolutely mad choices and at the half-way mark, I thought he was going completely nuts. If it weren’t for the suspicious amount of surveillance and a woman named Thea tracking him down for unknown purposes, it would have been really convincing that he was just losing his mind. I really liked Proctor and sympathized with his plight and thought the secondary characters introduced, particularly Thea, were great. 

Overall, I was very entertained by this and was left feeling vaguely confused but in a good way. This book is weird in a way highly reminiscent of the show 1899 – trust me, if you’ve watched it, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. The writing was evocative and at times philosophical without feeling pretentious, which I loved. I can see myself reading Justin Cronin’s other works at some point, though I admit dystopian books aren’t high on my reading list these days. The Ferryman is unlike any book I’ve read recently and will definitely leave me thinking about it for some time to come. The ending thoroughly wrapped up the plot and was more in depth than I was expecting from this type of surprise conclusion.