Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, is a novel revolving around an apocalyptic flu epidemic and follows a series of interconnecting characters. These characters are all connected by a famous Hollywood star, Arthur Leander, who dies of a heart attack during a stage production of King Lear in Toronto immediately before the flu outbreak starts. Primarily, the story takes place 20 years after the epidemic, following 28 year old Kirsten (a child actor on stage with Arthur when he died) and the group she travels with, ‘The Travelling Symphony,’ a caravan of actors and musicians who travel between the towns and settlements of the new world performing music and Shakespeare. However, the story also jumps non-chronologically between the lives of Arthur, his first ex-wife Miranda, his friend Clark, and the man who performed CPR on him on stage, Jeevan; focusing on their lives before, during, and after the outbreak. The way the story changes and develops is so intriguing and gripping that I am not going to spoil any of it in this review, as I didn’t know anything about it going in and it added to the experience. I will say though that this novel feels like it should be a classic, it’s beautifully written, it leaves you thinking about what it’s trying to say long after you’ve finished reading, and I found it very hard to put it down. Continue reading “Station Eleven (Emily St.John Mandel)- Book review”
The UK Reviewer 