Unsettling and powerful ... Precise, subtle ... The author, courageously, doesn’t try to make his protagonists enjoyable company; their banter is seldom playful, and the spare dialogue is delivered without quotation marks, rendering the numberless chapters and long paragraphs even more hushed ... Admirably resists a lurid climax befitting Patriot, instead offering an extended coda about a minor character alluded to early on.
A challenging novel that pushes against the elastic comfort of the expected, The Passenger Seat tests what makes a boy turn into a man and arrives in a territory both unexpected and certain.
