Station Eleven is at least the the third novel I've read during the COVID-19 pandemic that is about survival after a viral plague has wiped out most of humanity. Apparently, escapism is not really my thing.
After the heart-racing opening chapters set right at the start of a devastating flu outbreak in Toronto, the novel jumps back and forth between the years before the pandemic and a time twenty years later. The post-pandemic sections follow Kirsten Raymonde and her fellow actors and musicians as they travel between settlements as part of a small theatre troupe, the Traveling Symphony. The chapters set in the pre-pandemic years focus on various other characters, including an entertainment journalist-turned-paramedic, a famous actor, and the actor's artist ex-wife. With over 100 pages still to go, I already get the sense that these characters' lives are closely connected in a sort of Dickensian, fate-filled way that can be hard for some novelists to pull off without it seeming too convenient, but that Mandel seems clearly talented enough to pull off easily.
After the heart-racing opening chapters set right at the start of a devastating flu outbreak in Toronto, the novel jumps back and forth between the years before the pandemic and a time twenty years later. The post-pandemic sections follow Kirsten Raymonde and her fellow actors and musicians as they travel between settlements as part of a small theatre troupe, the Traveling Symphony. The chapters set in the pre-pandemic years focus on various other characters, including an entertainment journalist-turned-paramedic, a famous actor, and the actor's artist ex-wife. With over 100 pages still to go, I already get the sense that these characters' lives are closely connected in a sort of Dickensian, fate-filled way that can be hard for some novelists to pull off without it seeming too convenient, but that Mandel seems clearly talented enough to pull off easily.
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