Katie discovers~ The Passenger and Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy

I had never really heard about Cormac McCarthy until recently and the hype around his book The Road always put me off as I didn't want to be disappointed. When I finally decided to sit down and read this classic, I definitely was not disappointed and ended up reading more of his back list (No Country for Old Men and Blood Meridian). So, when the opportunity to read his latest and last set of books The Passenger and Stella Maris presented itself, I could not wait. I was particularly intrigued as to the concept of two books to tell the entire story with Stella Maris as a companion piece where the story is told entirely through the transcripts of Alicia's psychiatric sessions.

The passenger follows the story of Alicia and Bobby Western who are two sibling geniuses with deep seated trauma and a father who helped invent the atomic bomb. We start with Bobby a salvage diver (who was a race car driver in a previous life), waiting to dive on a sunken plane, to check for signs of life. The writing beautifully describes Bobby sitting on a boat watching the 4am sun rise while drinking tea from a flask while he tries to warm up from the cold water. This beginning starts like a traditional call to action but the rest of the book does not precede as you would expect.

The Passenger follows Bobby through his day-to-day life as agents turn up at his home unannounced and search through his stuff, thinking he may have stollen from the sunken plane, thus leading him to a very transient lifestyle. The books deal with themes of guilt, mental illness, forbidden love and government conspiracies. Many of the passages in this book are tender and thoughtful, throughout both books you can tell  McCarthy has done his research into mathematics, physics and deep-sea diving, however is some cases especially in Stella Maris it felt like the research had to be included just to prove he it had been undertaken and these passages did feel like they continued for a while, ( very similar to passages in blood Meridian). There’s some trans representation in The Passenger which isn’t perfect but adds depth to the character and you can see what McCarthy was trying to do.

Each chapter starts with a conversation with Alicia to her hallucinations as a patient in a psychiatric facility many of these conversations aren't in chronological order.  Many of the conversations left me with huge questions as Alicia over thinks things that we all just accept as reasons but this makes you question if should we just accept what were told.

Additionally, many of the conversations between Bobby and his friends in bars evolve around hypothetical situations and conspiracy theories. A really interesting conversation on the assassination of J F Kennedy occurs. Alicia and Bobby's father was a scientist that worked alongside Oppenheimer and Einstein in developing the Atomic Bomb which leaves Booby to question if the government is out to silence and control them. Or is Bobby just as paranoid as his sister who is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.

There is so much going on in The Passenger its complex and multi layered, I have so many questions that I feel have yet to be answered and overall, I feel I enjoyed Stella Maris more than The Passenger. 

Stella Maris focuses on conversation between Alicia Western and her psychiatrist Dr Cohen. Some of these conversations left me laughing out loud at the sarcasm. It did highlight that the test used to diagnose mental illness aren't always compatible for those with higher IQ as they question everything and methodically work out the answers that the doctor want. One of the main repeated conversations is whether Alicia has hallucinations or whether she falsely claims she does although who would voluntarily book themselves into a psychiatric facility. The other repeated conversation was her forbidden love for her brother.

Even though Stella Maris is a companion book to The Passenger it can definitely be read individually and would still make sense. Overall, I enjoyed McCarthy's observation on mental health and the insight into mental health diagnostic methods as well as the carefully placed pieces of sarcasm.