Emily St. John Mandel: Station Eleven (2014)
557 pages
English language
Published Dec. 25, 2014
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of "King Lear." Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur's chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them. Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten's arm is a line from Star Trek: "Because …
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of "King Lear." Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur's chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them. Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten's arm is a line from Star Trek: "Because survival is insufficient." But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.
In a future in which a pandemic has left few survivors, actress Kirsten Raymonde travels with a troupe performing Shakespeare and finds herself in a community run by a deranged prophet. The plot contains mild profanity and violence.
A book I have kept thinking of years after reading it. Great prose, plot, characters, universe - it has it all.
My favorite scenes are of Jeevan and Frank in Toronto as the pandemic is unfolding.
If not for food-, sleep- and toilet breaks I almost read this in one go. Harrowing and layered story that gives a surprising entanglement of characters.
Even days after finishing I still had ah-ha moments when I suddenly understood how and why some things happened and who was connected to whom.
Wish there was a sequel where you learn more about the characters. Some parts are eerily recognizable now we had a real pandemic.
Mind you; the book is not sci-fi! It is our world after a pandemic; no fancy, crazy tech is used or invented in the book.
This was recommended to me and I went in knowing very little about it.
I found it to be a really gripping novel; hard to put down. I was really excited to see how the characters lives intersected and how they handled the trauma of the devastating pandemic.
The book tells the story of the characters at various stages of their lives ranging from many years before the pandemic, to around 20 years after. This gives a really interesting perspective on the characters, and keeps the pace of the book fast and interesting.
Highly recommended!
Enjoyable thought experiment on what the world might be like after a colossal epidemic. Unfortunately, my reading was a bit disjointed, due to no fault of the author, because my copy had 20 pages ripped out of it at the very end. I had to wait for a library copy to continue. So my review is not coherent and a result... But I can say it is beautifully written and if you need a captivating sci-fi read, you'll enjoy this book.
