{"id":36605,"date":"2014-12-08T10:03:19","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T15:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=36605"},"modified":"2021-01-27T13:27:49","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T18:27:49","slug":"station-eleven-by-emily-st-john-mandel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/station-eleven-by-emily-st-john-mandel\/","title":{"rendered":"Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/12\/Station-Eleven-by-Emily-St.-John-Mandel-on-BookDragon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-36606\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/12\/Station-Eleven-by-Emily-St.-John-Mandel-on-BookDragon-541x800.jpg\" alt=\"Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel on BookDragon\" width=\"541\" height=\"800\" \/><\/a>A famous actor, his 8-year-old co-star, and an in-training paramedic walk onto a Toronto stage (actually, the latter rushes on with great force) &#8230; have you heard this one before? Quite possibly, yes, as Canadian-born-and-raised <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emilymandel.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Emily St. John Mandel<\/a>\u2019s fourth novel seems to be ubiquitously, unanimously popping up on countless end-of-the-year, &#8216;best-of&#8217;-lists! If you&#8217;re not yet one of the converted, <em>Station Eleven<\/em> is one of the more reliably hyped choices, so\u00a0open up those pages or plug the audible into your ears (mere minor\u00a0complaints about prodigious narrator Kirsten Potter here, except you might have the occasional\u00a0eyeball roll because\u00a0that she can&#8217;t pronounce certain words like Hyderabad). But let&#8217;s get this story started already!<\/p>\n<p>So the actor, the child, the paramedic are up on\u00a0stage. The seemingly aggressive paramedic is\u00a0actually not a rabid fan; he&#8217;s trying to save the actor&#8217;s life. Arthur Leander, at just 51, dies on stage while playing King Lear. Kirsten Raymonde, who plays\u00a0one of the\u00a0younger versions of Lear&#8217;s daughters, watches all in shock, as Jeevan Chaudhary pumps unsuccessfully\u00a0at Arthur&#8217;s chest. One will be carried out, one will leave in the care of\u00a0her caregiver, the last\u00a0will walk into the snowy night alone and answer\u00a0a shocking phone call from his closest\u00a0friend \u2013 a doctor \u2013\u00a0about an unstoppable, virulent pandemic. Life as the world knows it is coming to an end. Although they will never again inhabit a shared space, their three lives will remain inextricably linked.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty years later, the majority of the world&#8217;s population has been wiped out by the\u00a0Georgia Flu:\u00a0&#8220;&#8216;There were no more statisticians by then &#8230; but shall we say ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent?'&#8221; the self-made, so-called Prophet intones to his band of followers. The creature comforts of civilization are gone: electricity, running water, instant communication devices, the world wide web. A first generation is already coming of age completely off screens. Small groups of survivors have banded together, building self-governing, self-sustaining communities.<\/p>\n<p>In this less-than-brave new world, Kirsten, now a young adult, is a part of a motley group who call themselves the Traveling Symphony. As their name suggests, they perform music, along with a repertoire of Shakespeare\u00a0plays wherever they stop.\u00a0Now two of their own have gone missing, and the rumors are that they journeyed\u00a0to the mythical Museum of Civilization. The others attempt to follow &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Arthur is two decades dead, but his only son is not. Shortly before Arthur&#8217;s\u00a0sudden death, he unintentionally made his son and Kirsten guardians of the titular <em>Station Eleven<\/em>, a graphic title his first wife took years to create and later self-published. The fictional world she imagined sustains and inspires both children in extraordinarily different ways.<\/p>\n<p>Author Mandel moves fluidly between the world before and after the deadly plague, filling in Arthur&#8217;s famed life as Hollywood glitterati, his troubled relationships, his best friend. His wannabe savior Jeevan and he have\u00a0crossed paths before when Jeevan was a celebrity photographer, and then an entertainment journalist to whom Arthur once gave an exclusive. Kirsten remains posthumously devoted to Arthur all her young life, keeping a folder of clippings about him she happens upon as if they hold\u00a0the memories she can&#8217;t conjure.<\/p>\n<p>In a dystopic existence when social structures and basic relationships are repeatedly being\u00a0redefined, the survivors create\u00a0microcosms that work and others that clearly don&#8217;t. Mandel delicately, intricately explores what is let go, what is reclaimed, what is held sacred when\u00a0once-privileged humans are suddenly so deprived\u00a0&#8230; from families to information, from someone else&#8217;s laws to personal morals, from dreams to an all-too-fathomable reality. All along, she seems to be asking\u00a0\u2013 if you knew the end was nigh, what choices might\u00a0you make &#8230;?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A famous actor, his 8-year-old co-star, and an in-training paramedic walk onto a Toronto stage (actually, the latter rushes on with great force) &#8230; have you heard this one before? Quite possibly, yes, as Canadian-born-and-raised Emily St. John Mandel\u2019s fourth novel seems to be ubiquitously,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,274,6],"tags":[6608,75,49,9523,6097,11,123,458,13,39,6098],"class_list":["post-36605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-canadian","category-fiction","tag-bookdragon","tag-death","tag-dystopia","tag-eco-fiction","tag-emily-st-john-mandel","tag-friendship","tag-illness","tag-kirsten-potter","tag-love","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-station-eleven"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/station-eleven-by-emily-st-john-mandel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A famous actor, his 8-year-old co-star, and an in-training paramedic walk onto a Toronto stage (actually, the latter rushes on with great force) &#8230; have you heard this one before? 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