Textbook Thursday: Swan Song by Robert McCammon

When it comes to books about the apocalypse, Stephen King’s The Stand ranks up there pretty high among fans of the genre. Not for me, though. Don’t get me wrong, I love The Stand, but if you were to ask me what my favorite end of the world novel is, there’s no doubt in my mind that I would say Swan Song by Robert McCammon.

While I can’t quite remember how I stumbled across this book (it may have been in some back alley pawn shop), I do remember what I was going through at the time I read it. I had just been diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, and was having a pretty rough go of things. I found Swan Song though, and it allowed me to escape for a while. A long while. At 864 pages, it took me a good couple of months to sip it back. The funny thing is, just as I was getting to the ending, I had to go in the hospital for some testing. The kind of tests where they knock you out. So while waiting for everything to begin, I finished the book with a tear in my eye. Upon my return home, I was drugged up pretty good and my mom was leading me in to the lobby of our apartment. With me not being in my right state of mind, I turned to the group of old ladies that were sitting down gabbing, held up Swan Song, and proclaimed, “This is a very good book,” in a medicated slur. They looked at me funny, and life went on.

When the drugs wore off, I couldn’t remember what happened at the end of the book, and had to go back and read the last 100 pages.It was a pleasure to do so.

I will spare you a detailed synopsis of the book. All you have to know is that it is a big, sprawling epic about good versus evil after a nuclear apocalypse. It was first published in 1987, when nuclear war was all the rage, so don’t hate on its dated plot tool. The story, the characters, the supernatural aspects of it all still ring true today, and make it one of the best books I have ever read.

So go ahead, brag all you want about how much you loved Stephen King’s The Stand as the ultimate book about the apocalypse, I’ll be sitting in the corner reading Swan Song by Robert McCammon for the umpteenth time with a big smile on my face knowing something that you don’t.