Station Eleven
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4.3 • 313 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND SOON TO BE A HBO MINISERIES
What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty.
One snowy night in Toronto famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage whilst performing the role of a lifetime. That same evening a deadly virus touches down in North America.
The world will never be the same again.
Twenty years later Kirsten, an actress in the Travelling Symphony, performs Shakespeare in the settlements that have grown up since the collapse.
But then her newly hopeful world is threatened.
If civilization was lost, what would you preserve? And how far would you go to protect it?
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2015
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD 2015
2014 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS FINALIST
2015 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FINALIST
PRAISE FOR STATION ELEVEN
'BEST NOVEL. The big one . . . One of the 2014 books that I did read stands above all the others: Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel . . . beautifully written, and wonderfully elegiac, a book that I will long remember, and return to.' George R.R. Martin, author of Game of Thrones
'Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven is that rare find that feels familiar and extraordinary at the same time. This is truly something special' Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus
'Disturbing, inventive and exciting, Station Eleven left me wistful for a world where I still live.' Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist
'It's hard to imagine a novel more perfectly suited, in both form and content, to this literary moment. Station Eleven, if we were to talk about it in our usual way, would seem like a book that combines high culture and low culture-"literary fiction" and "genre fiction." But those categories aren't really adequate to describe the book.' - The New Yorker
'Unmissable . . . A literary page-turner, impeccably paced, which celebrates the world lost.' - Vulture
'Soul-quaking . . . Mandel displays the impressive skill of evoking both terror and empathy. - Los Angeles Review of Books
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
You’ve never encountered a post-apocalyptic tale quite like Station Eleven, which follows (among other things) a troupe of Shakespearean actors who traverse the blasted American Midwest to keep the spirit of theater and music alive. Emily St. John Mandel’s fourth novel is sure to put this indie darling on the map. Her writing is startlingly elegant, and the interwoven stories of the book’s characters—who yearn for long-gone comforts like TV sitcoms, airplanes and the Internet—are haunting and heartbreakingly real.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Few themes are as played-out as that of post-apocalypse, but St. John Mandel (The Lola Quartet) finds a unique point of departure from which to examine civilization's wreckage, beginning with a performance of King Lear cut short by the onstage death of its lead, Arthur Leander, from an apparent heart attack. On hand are an aspiring paramedic, Jeevan Chaudary, and a young actress, Kirsten Raymonde; Leander's is only the first death they will witness, as a pandemic, the so-called Georgia Flu, quickly wipes out all but a few pockets of civilization. Twenty years later, Kirsten, now a member of a musical theater troupe, travels through a wasteland inhabited by a dangerous prophet and his followers. Guided only by the graphic novel called Station Eleven given to her by Leander before his death, she sets off on an arduous journey toward the Museum of Civilization, which is housed in a disused airport terminal. Kirsten is not the only survivor with a curious link to the actor: the story explores Jeevan's past as an entertainment journalist and, in a series of flashbacks, his role in Leander's decline. Also joining the cast are Leander's first wife, Miranda, who is the artist behind Station Eleven, and his best friend, 70-year-old Clark Thompson, who tends to the terminal settlement Kirsten is seeking. With its wild fusion of celebrity gossip and grim future, this book shouldn't work nearly so well, but St. John Mandel's examination of the connections between individuals with disparate destinies makes a case for the worth of even a single life.
Customer Reviews
A masterpiece when it all comes together
This book starts off a little bit slow, and a bit dry but is a brutal masterpiece of pathos and connection.
The first half was unsatisfying and not really fun to read because at times it limped along slowly and erratically, jumping around characters instead of giving continuity, or allowing thorough engagement with the characters but it was worth persisting for the finale and its intensity of emotions.
It’s not a “fun” or heavily dark and thrilling post apocalyptic read, as the pace struggles somewhat, it’s heavy on realism; but it is beautifully crafted and satisfyingly tidy at the end as it builds towards conclusion.
The end is powerful and worth the slow build.
A book for our time
It has been many years since a book has moved me so, in its humanity, its pathos, its poignancy and in the dignity and the oft grimness of the human condition. It has struck me deep in my soul. Published 2014 it is an elegy for a drowned world and its refugees, a near miss in our own fates, in recent times.
Amazing
One of the best books I’ve read for some time. Very unique