Editorial Reviews
Readers
often ask where I get my ideas. The better question would be: Where don’t I?
Many people
know that The Passage was born from a challenge laid down by my
eight-year-old daughter to write the story of “a girl who saves the world.”
This wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear—it seemed a trifle ambitious—but a
dare is a dare. For the next three months she joined me on my daily jog,
following along on her bicycle, while the two of us hashed out the plot. As the
weeks passed, I realized we were onto something much better than the book I was
supposed to be writing. I put that book aside, wrote the first chapter of The
Passage, and never looked back.
So don’t
ever think you shouldn’t listen to your kids.
But my
daughter’s challenge wasn’t the only inspiration. When I write a novel, my goal
is to put absolutely everything I have into its pages, right down to the
interesting thing that happened yesterday. I know I’m done when my mind feels
as empty as a leaky bucket. So many influences, real and imagined, went into The
Passage that I couldn’t list them if I tried. But one memory that stands
out is the night my family and I tried to flee Houston in advance of hurricane
Rita. Apparently, about a million other people had the same idea. After five
hours on the road, we’d made it all of sixty miles. The highways were clogged
with cars that had long since run out of gas; every minimart and gas station
had been picked clean. I jumped the median and made it home in a little under
an hour, my gas gauge floating just above ‘E’.
Rita missed
Houston, slamming into a less-inhabited section of Texas and Louisiana coastline.
But the experience of being in a large urban evacuation, with its feeling of
barely-bottled panic, was one I’ll never forget, and is everywhere in the pages
of The Passage.
So where did
The Twelve come from?
Again, many
places. But if I had to pick one source, it would be the strong women in my
life. No bones about it: Gentlemen, if you doubt for a second that women are
tougher than we are, go watch one have a baby. So here you have Alicia, the
woman warrior with her blades and crossbow; here you have Amy, the spiritual
leader and visionary; here you have one of my favorite new characters, Lore
DeVeer, whose mechanical savvy is matched only by her unbridled sensuality;
here you have a fourth woman (sorry, can’t tell you who) whose maternal
strength is as powerful as any great spectacle of nature. As I wrote The
Twelve, I came to understand that these powerful characters were the
backbone of the tale. Even more, they are a tribute to all the amazing women I
am privileged to know, befriend, and in one very lucky instance, marry.
Hope you
enjoy The Twelve. All eyes.
