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30 Thrills and Chills

Justin Cronin
United States
Robert J. Wiersema
British Columbia
Justin Cronin,  United States

Born and raised in New England, Justin Cronin is a graduate of Harvard University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Awards for his fiction include the Stephen Crane Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. He is a professor of English at Rice University and lives with his wife and children in Houston, Texas.  His new novel, a thriller, is The Passage. Read more

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Robert J. Wiersema,  British Columbia

Robert J. Wiersema channeled his childhood propensity for lying (even though he always got caught) into the craft of fiction, which he studied at the University of Victoria. He worked for many years as a bookseller in Victoria and wrote book reviews for Quill & Quire, the Vancouver Sun, the Globe and Mail, and the Ottawa Citizen, before writing his first novel, Before I Wake. His new novel is Bedtime Story. Read more

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Host: Denise Ryan
Thursday, October 21, 2010 - 1:00pm - 2:15pm
Waterfront Theatre
$17 / $8.50 for student groups

Step aside Stephenie Myer. Move over Stephen King. There are some new chill-meisters in town. Justin Cronin's The Passage was the blockbuster book of the summer. Balancing suspense, horror, and genuine thrills with a beautiful haunting style, this epic novel turns the vampire genre on its head. Robert J. Wiersema's first novel, Before I Wake, was an impossible-to-put-down, contemplative supernatural thriller.  In his new book, Bedtime Story, a young boy wakes within a story he’s been reading, and, as his father struggles to free him, he fights for survival, facing unimaginable perils in a surreal world intended to capture the hearts and souls of children like him.

Suitable for grades 8-12

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View the study guide for this event.

Thrills and Chills

Step aside Stephenie Meyer. Move over Stephen King. There are some new chill-meisters in town. Justin Cronin’s The Passage was the blockbuster book of the summer. Balancing suspense, horror, and genuine thrills with a beautiful haunting style, this epic novel turns the vampire genre on its head. Robert J. Wiersema’s first novel, Before I Wake, was an impossible-to-put-down, contemplative supernatural thriller. In his new book, Bedtime Story, a young boy wakes within a story he’s been reading, and, as his father struggles to free him, he fights for survival, facing unimaginable perils in a surreal world intended to capture the hearts and souls of children like him.

Curriculum Connection:

• analyzing literary texts.
• responding to a text personally, critically, and creatively.
• comparing ideas and elements.

Activities

1. Cronin’s The Passage draws on many different genres of fiction including horror, sci-fi, and vampire fiction. Ask students to pick one genre that they are familiar and comfortable with, and identify the elements in the novel that would place it in that category. How is the book different from other books of the same genre?
 • Have students who chose the same topic to explore get together in a small group and exchange ideas. Then mix up the groups so that each student has a different topic from the other and have them discuss which (if any) genre is most prominent in the novel. If they had to categorize the novel, which category would it best fall into? Why?

2. Often the supernatural element in fiction serves as a gateway to exploring very real concepts and events. Ask students to look at either The Passage or Bedtime Story and look past the fantastical aspect in order to identify the very human concepts the story is meant to examine. Write a short paragraph about it.
 • Using the above as a starting point, have students imagine what the novel would be like if it were stripped of its supernatural elements. Ask them to rewrite the basic plot of the novel without the use of any supernatural concepts. What would change and what would not? Is it possible for a story to have the same core meaning when an important element is removed?

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