Station Eleven

by Mandel, Emily St John
ISBN: 9780804172448
4.8 (13)
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Used - Trade Paperback - 9780804172448

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Overview

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

A National Book Award Finalist
A PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band's existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.

  • Format: TradePaperback
  • Author: Mandel, Emily St John
  • ISBN: 9780804172448
  • Condition: Used
  • Dimensions: 8.00 x 0.75
  • Number Of Pages: 352
  • Publication Year: 2015

Dystopian done right

This is a story of how we hold on to those things that make us human. Station Eleven…will leave you breathless. This is storytelling at its best.

Julia K.

HPB Staff

Customer Reviews

Rating Snapshot

5 ★   85%
4 ★   15%
3 ★   0%
2 ★   0%
1 ★   0%
4.8
13 Ratings

7

7% Would Recommend
1 Recommendations

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  • Read this hopeful book about a possible pandemic

    Would Recommend
    Valerie S. - 1 month ago

    I had watched and loved the TV series a few years ago. The book and the series are different in many ways, but they are both worthwhile to read and to view. They are dystopian, yet hopeful. I recommend both!

    Tags: Book Club Book, Page Turner

  • A quiet and thoughtfully-crafted tale of the end of the world

    Rebecca R. - 1 year 4 months ago

    Though technically a tale of the apocalypse, Station Eleven's focus is not on the catastrophe itself, but on the people who remain in its wake. The author weaves together timelines from before, during and after a flu strain wipes out 99% of the earth's population to explore the essence of our humanity in this beautiful, affecting novel.

    HPB Staff Review

  • The prose is beautiful & the characters are compelling & genuine.

    Bri B. - 1 year 11 months ago

    This book is great on many different levels. It's great for fans of post-apocalyptic worlds, suspense, and Shakespeare ( like me!). It is also an interesting look at the intricacies of human interaction, particularly in trying circumstances ("trying circumstances" is perhaps an understatement for this particular book). The prose is beautiful and the characters are compelling and genuine. I would recommend this book to all adult readers and older teens who enjoy an out-of-the-box novel.

    HPB Staff Review

  • Post-apocalyptic, powerhouse novel.

    Elizabeth S. - 2 years 3 months ago

    The book opens with a scene in which famous actor Arthur Leander dies during a performance of King Lear. By the end of the week, most of world's population will be dead from the pandemic Georgia flu. Fifteen years later, a troupe of traveling actors and musicians organizes under the motto "survival is insufficient." Meaning, that even if a rare strain of flu has wiped out 99.99% of the world's population, those who survive-and just barely at that-still need to create and witness art. The troupe sets out to perform live Shakespeare in villages and outposts around Toronto, setting into motion a collision of two very different groups of people. Station Eleven is a haunting story that speaks to the survival of devastation, our ephemeral existence and the endurance of art. It's a well-written book that reminds us to appreciate the wonder of modern life, as much as it reminds us to appreciate the literature that connects humans across generations.

    HPB Staff Review

  • Not your average dystopia

    Ray B. - 2 years 11 months ago

    Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is a quiet but powerful study of humanity, art, and hope after the complete collapse of society as we know it. A disease known as the "Georgia Flu" spreads quickly across the globe, killing roughly ninety-nine percent of the world's population. People are not the only thing to go in the collapse, electricity fails, gasoline dries up, and the internet becomes nothing more than a lesson to be learned in history class in the new dark future. The novel jumps back and forth through time, chronicling the events and exploring the lives of it's characters before, during, and long after the world is reset by disease. In the chapters set in the pre-collapse world, the story revolves in wonderful circles around Arthur Leander, a superstar actor living in Toronto, who dies of a heart attack during a stage performance of Shakespeare's King Lear, only hours before the rest of the world would start to crumble. As the circles widen around Arthur's life, we get to know his many ex-wives, his friends, and others affected by his "celebrity." In the years after the collapse, Emily St. John Mandel expresses a dystopian future, unlike anything I've read in a book or have seen on a screen. There are no zombies, no "Mad Max" highway pirates wearing masks made of skulls. A band of survivors who call themselves "The Traveling Symphony" navigate the broken world of North America performing Shakespeare throughout the scattered towns and encampments that now make up society. To them, survival is not enough and their art is the thing keeping them from complete hopelessness. While they do not face the threat of zombie hordes, their world is not a safe one. People still kill for food and ammunition and cults of religious fanatics seem to spring from the ground without much effort at all. In particular, a man who calls himself "The Prophet" presents a very real danger to the symphony. What I loved about Station Eleven are the ingenious way the author is able to connect the past and future together in very clever ways while delivering great images of failing marriages pre-collapse to a quarantined plane sitting still on a tarmac in a world that is turning to dust. I highly recommend this novel and you should trust me because I read it.

    HPB Staff Review