Re read thoughts at the bottom:

In probably over 85% dialogue, Bobby Western, a diver mourning the loss of his sister, hounded by the government for unknown reasons, is actually seeking answers not through a typical journey—but through the alignment, or realignment of his self, through talking to a large cast of characters. And what those discussions predominantly are about fall into two camps, for the most part: Metaphysics and philosophy.

One would assume Bobby would gather himself and take on the government and unravel the reason he is being targeted, as he’s more-or-less baffled as to why. What he actually wants is to be left alone to process grief and to continue to exist off-the-grid. As he discusses a wide range of topics his “journey”, or traversal, is to circumnavigate the obstacle entirely. By way of adapting himself with the information provided to him by others who are are similar outliers. Bobby doesn’t get to help define reality—that is for those in power. Not the people who should be in charge in constructs (social or otherwise), but mostly people who simply got there first, and attempt to make everybody else play their game.

The pivotal decision, then, at least for Bobby, is whether or not to accept the conditions of the engagement put to him. This is by no means a plot driven book. The movement is in his interiority. And alternating with it is a similar, but different interiority of his sister, who is grieving. We don’t know the time and place in which the conversations she has with a construct of “the kid” take place. But again, understanding via information received is the progress of the book in these sections, too. And it falls into question further: What is reality, why do accept life as defined by our government? What happens when you do not fit in and do not accept how society functions?

As an imperative, The Passenger wants to show what the byproduct of our civilization does to dissent and dissidents. To those who poke the bear by doing nothing but existing. The intelligent and exceptional, if they can function at all, are treated as a kind of cancer. And to destroy something without understanding it is a certain kind of inhumane evil we often visit upon just about everything as a society and culture.

And so this book is about greater understanding of all things as a substation for a more traditional book with a plot and catharsis and obstacles that must be addressed as we have seen before. It raises more questions than it answers and it shows contradictions that are painful and beautiful. As each character is a foil to present Bobby with an opportunity to comprehend something he hadn’t, it is posed to the reader as a simulacrum of the experience Bobby is having.

For me, it was textured and rich even solely on audio, with fantastic performances by two narrators. I highly recommend it, as it gets into a certain rhythm that is just entrancing and commands attention in a very organic way. I am very curious what the reading experience is like, and I will be waiting for the second book in this duology very much, I have to say.
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So, I just read it for a second time: I like it even more the second go around. I actually found that there’s more answers than I had previously remembered. The end of Western is pretty seriously codified and telegraphed. At the very start, I think it’s the tender on the diving crew? (but possibly not) says they’ve had a dream in which, paraphrased, Western was navigating the bottom and his only way out was the cutting off of all of his friends. This is right off the gun.

When the G-men show up after the dive, where a passenger is missing and he is not put in jail, but is effectively “arrested” by the IRS (and other agencies, presumably), Western begins a whistle-stop tour of those people in his orbit, so-called friends. All progress towards what his action will be is codified in those discussions. They’re comprised of outcasts and misfits themselves, and the alternating chapters with his deceased sister aid the metaphysical breakdown of his progress, as they perceive the world completely differently. Yet life, as constructed by our society, serves neither of them. She is the allegedly schizophrenic, with a chorus within her constructs as intractable as any “real” person. And the notion of ideas having traction, momentum—and a subsequent detractor, especially when it’s a persona with her mind, lead to an excitable conclusion. Just as Western does, in his own way. There is no real choice because of how things were laid out even further back than the ‘60s, when this takes place. The only choice Western really has is in the very last few sentences.