Passage by Connie Willis
Elaine Powell hosted this meeting as a pool party at her house. Eighteen people showed up, including one first-time participant. The topic of discussion was Passage, a recent Hugo-nominated novel by Connie Willis. The book is a contemporary medical thriller involving two medical researchers, Joanna Lander and Richard Wright, who are looking into near-death experiences. They collect some data by interviewing patients who’ve survived such events, and also by subjecting volunteers to a drug that simulates the experience. One of their main obstacles is a new age guru who tries to get to patients first and fill their minds full of his preconceived ideas of the afterlife. Eleven of us had started the book, and all but two had finished it.
The two published authors in our group loved Passage, which one felt was “the most ambitious book I’ve read in a very long time”. They raved about the construction of the novel, citing “structure that takes my breath away”,