Passenger
By Ronald Damien Malfi
Delirium Books / ISBN: 978-1-934546-04-8
Review by: Jennifer Barnes, Midwest Book Review

Passenger is a novel carved from one solid block of stone. Malfi the sculptor chips away intently revealing a sharp plane here, a smooth curve there, but doesn't unveil the resulting form until the final pages of the book. The novel's concept is deceptively simple, a man wakes up on a Baltimore city bus with no memory and no ID, only an address written on his hand. This allows for plenty of mystery, suspense and even a few comic moments. The plot and main character can wander in a seemingly aimless manner while the reader avidly searches for clues to the man's identity.

Passenger provides plenty of food for thought about how a person's past makes them who they are, how experiences help create identity. The book goes even further and implies that even when a person's past is unknown it still controls their future.

The book is written in a sparse, haunting style that resonates through each page and seems to swell to fill the slim volume, like a single note played in a large empty room. As always Malfi is the master of mood, creating a slow-building anxiety that forces your eyes to move faster across the page. It's a risky move to rest the whole book on a few final pages however the end does deliver with a satisfying but tragic revelation. Mysterious, thought-provoking and gritty Malfi's Baltimore is a fascinating place to visit, I'm just glad I don't live there.