A Toothsome Deal

By Jessica Stark

It’s hard to imagine English professor Justin Cronin with fangs, but his next novel has a lot of bite.

Cronin recently inked a deal with powerhouse publisher Ballantine Books for the North American rights to a trilogy of post-apocalyptic vampire novels set 100 years in the future. New York magazine reported the deal with Ballantine, a division of Random House, to be worth $3.75 million. The first novel of the trilogy, “The Passage,” is scheduled for publication in summer 2009, with books two and three to follow in 2011 and 2013.

The vampires in Cronin’s novels aren’t the gothic creatures of traditional vampire stories, but ordinary men and women transformed by a virus spawned by a botched government experiment to lengthen human life span. Though the trilogy might be classified as science fiction, Cronin insists his work will find a home in many different genres.

“People will call this what they want — science fiction, speculative fiction, even vampire fiction — and that’s fine,” Cronin said. “This is ultimately a story about the most basic questions we face as a society and a species — what it means to be a human being and who gets to be one.”

The idea for the trilogy was born from a request by Cronin’s 10-year-old daughter, Iris, who asked him to write a book about a girl who saves the world. The story chronicles the journey of an orphan girl who struggles to save humankind with her unusual powers to combat the viral epidemic.
“It is rare to find a novel that delivers so many things we look for in a book: intense plotting, exquisite writing, memorable characters and a tremendous vision and imagination,” said Mark Tavani, Cronin’s editor at Ballantine. “We’re very excited about publishing this trilogy, which we know will appeal to a wide mainstream audience.”

Though the trilogy’s first installment won’t debut until summer 2009, it already is being hailed as a page-turner that combines the imaginative power of Stephen King’s “The Stand” and the headlong storytelling of Michael Crichton’s early novels.

A vampire trilogy may seem like a departure from Cronin’s past works, but familiar themes, such as love, friendship and sacrifice, emerge. Cronin said that although the books will feel a little different from his other writings, the impulses that drove him to write this story are identical to those that have driven him in the past.

“I simply wrote the book I wanted to write, the one that wanted to be written,” Cronin said. “Really, the whole thing has been an act of complete stubbornness from the start. When my wife asked me what would happen if no one took the book, I told her I would have written it for free. That’s how much I’m enjoying telling this story.”

“I simply wrote the book I wanted to write, the one that wanted to be written.”

-Justin Cronin

With the kind of recent success Cronin has enjoyed, many writers would pack up their offices and quit their day jobs, but Cronin doesn’t see it that way. He intends to return to the classroom, where he teaches fiction writing.

“I’ve been a teacher of one kind or another since I graduated from college, and I don’t see any reason to stop now,” Cronin said. “Teaching keeps me grounded. It’s satisfying to be able to help young writers, and it’s good to be in touch with faculty colleagues.”

Cronin is not sure yet how he will use this experience in the classroom, but he wants his students to know that this kind of deal is extraordinary and hard to come by. More importantly, he wants to make sure his students know that success is possible.

“You can find readers,” Cronin said. “Writing doesn’t have to be a solitary act. You can connect with people and find out what’s on their minds. That’s what happened with ‘The Passage.’ The manuscript hit a nerve, and editors responded to it.”

One caveat he’ll offer young writers: “Don’t attempt something with such a big canvas until you’re pretty seasoned. I have a solid two decades of real writing experience under my belt, and it’s still a challenge for me.”

Cronin, whose collection “Mary and O’Neil” won the PEN/Hemingway and the Stephen Crane prizes for best debut fiction, also is the author of the novel “The Summer Guest,” which was a Booksense national best seller. Other honors he’s received include a Whiting Writers’ Award, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pew Foundation, the National Novella Award and an Individual Artists Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.