Station Eleven

Updated on Dec 16, 2023

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Emily st john mandel station eleven

Station Eleven is a 2014 science fiction novel by Emily St. John Mandel. It is Mandel's fourth novel. The novel takes place in the Great Lakes region after a fictional swine flu pandemic, known as the "Georgia Flu", has devastated the world, killing most of the population. It won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2015.

The novel was well received by critics, with praise emphasizing the understated nature of Mandel's writing. It appeared on several end of year lists as one of the best novels of 2014.

Emily st john mandel discusses station eleven

Plot summary

While watching a production of King Lear at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto Jeevan watches as the actor playing Lear, Arthur Leander, has a heart attack. Because he has some medical training Jeevan tries to resuscitate Arthur but is unsuccessful, instead he comforts one of the child actors in the production, Kirsten. After leaving the play Jeevan goes for a walk in the snow and receives a call from one of his friends who works as a doctor who warns him to get out of the city as a mysterious Georgia flu is spreading rapidly and will soon become a full out epidemic. Jeevan loads up on supplies and goes to stay with his brother.

Twenty years later Kirsten Raymonde is part of a nomadic group of actors and musicians known as the Travelling Symphony. Kirsten, who was eight at the time of the plague, can remember little of her life before Year Zero but clings to a two volume set of graphic novels given to her by Arthur before his death called Dr. Eleven. The troupe operates on a two-year cycle orbiting around the Great Lakes region and during this time Kirsten scavenges abandoned homes looking for old tabloid magazines for traces of Arthur. After returning to a small town where they left their pregnant friend, Charlie, and her husband, Jeremy, the troupe is disturbed to find that not only are their friends missing but the town is under the control of the mysterious Prophet, who rapes young girls that he claims as his "wives". The troupe quickly leave and determine to go off route to the Museum of Civilization, which is actually a former airport, where they believe they might find their missing friends. However, on route they discover a young stowaway who left the town as she was promised to the Prophet as his bride. Shortly after members of the troupe begin to disappear until finally the entire troupe is gone leaving only Kirsten and her friend August. Frightened they continue on to the Museum hoping to be reunited with others.

Unbeknownst to Kirsten the graphic novel Dr. Eleven was written by Arthur's first wife, Miranda. Fourteen years before the collapse of civilization Miranda left an abusive relationship with an artist and married Arthur. However his fame hit its peak and she realized he was having an affair with a blonde woman who would become his second wife, Elizabeth. The night that Miranda discovers the affair she walks out of her home and asks the paparazzo outside if he has a cigarette. The paparazzo turns out be Jeevan. Years later, when Jeevan is trying to reinvent himself as an entertainment journalist Arthur gives him the exclusive that he is leaving Elizabeth and his young child to be with his co-star of his new movie Lydia Marks. Jeevan reflects on this while he and his brother Frank are locked in Frank's apartment waiting for the epidemic to run its course. After a while they realize that no one is coming to save them. Frank, a paraplegic, commits suicide in order to allow his brother to move freely. Jeevan walks south and eventually finds a new settlement where he marries and becomes the town doctor.

Meanwhile, back in Year Zero, Clark, one of Arthur's friends, is the one who informs Elizabeth that Arthur is dead. Clark, Elizabeth and Elizabeth's son, Tyler, happen to be on the same flight from New York to Toronto to go to Arthur's funeral when it is redirected to the fictional Severn City Airport due to the pandemic. Clark ends up resettling in the airport post-pandemic and becomes the "curator" of the Museum of Civilization where he gathers iPhones and laptops and explains to children born post-pandemic what they did. While most of the airport survivors manage to eke out an existence and cope with their new life Elizabeth and Tyler grow increasingly religious and strange believing that the pandemic happened for a reason and spared those who were good. They finally leave in Year Two with a religious cult.

Back in Year Twenty Kirsten and August meet a group of the Prophet's men along with Sayid, one of the members of their troupe. They manage to kill the men and free Sayid who informs them that one of their friends, Dieter, was killed and that the hostage that the Prophet's men took to replace Dieter managed to escape and warn the troupe explaining how Kirsten and August were unable to find them. Frightened, Kirsten, August and Sayid try to hurry towards the Severn City Airport. Kirsten however is discovered by the Prophet himself whose dog she realizes has the same name as Dr. Eleven in the Dr. Eleven comics. Just before the Prophet is about to kill her he speaks some lines that she recognizes from Dr. Eleven. She quotes some back to him, distracting him long enough that one of his younger sentries, who does not want to be a part of his cult, shoots and kills him before taking his own life. Kirsten and the rest continue on to the Museum of Civilization where they are reunited with Charlie, Jeremy and the rest of the troupe. Clark, who has stayed at the museum for twenty years, realizes who Kirsten is and her attachment to Arthur. Furthermore, he shows her that from the watch tower of the airport there is a town to the south that uses electricity showing that civilization is beginning to take root again.

Five weeks later Kirsten leaves with the theatre troupe for the south. She leaves one volume of Dr. Eleven with Clark who begins to read it and recognizes a scene in the graphic novel that is borrowed from a dinner party with Arthur and Miranda he once attended.

Characters

Kirsten Raymonde – Is a young child actor from Toronto who is eight when the Georgian flu decimates her world. Initially she and her brother are the only survivors in her family but as they travel he dies too. She joins the theatre troupe as a teenager and becomes obsessed with actor Arthur Leander whose death she witnessed as a child.

Arthur Leander – A wildly successful film actor originally from the fictional Delano Island in British Columbia. Despite his success Arthur is shiftless and unhappy and marries three times. He dies onstage of a heart attack portraying King Lear in a Toronto theatre at the age of 51 the night the pandemic takes hold of North America.

Jeevan Chaudhary – A former paparazzo, turned entertainment journalist, turned EMT whose life keeps intersecting with Leander's at key moments.

Miranda Carroll – Arthur's first wife who is eleven years younger than him. She is both an artist who is obsessed with creating her graphic novel, Dr. Eleven, about Dr. Eleven, a man who lives on a space station shaped like a planet that evacuated when aliens descended, and a proficient business woman. Shortly before his death she gives him copies of her finally completed graphic novel which he later gives to Kirsten and his son, Tyler. Mandel has said this is the character of her creation she most identifies with.

Clark Thompson – Arthur's British best friend whom he met while they were struggling actors who later works as a corporate business man and then after the collapse of civilization reinvents himself as a curator to a museum dedicated to obsolete objects.

Tyler Leander – The son of Arthur and his second wife Elizabeth. He grows up in Jerusalem and is stranded in an airport in the fictional city of Severn for two years after the epidemic. He and his mother eventually leave with a religious cult and he grows up to be the religious leader known as the Prophet .

Genre

Although many publications classified the novel as science fiction, Mandel herself does not believe that the work belongs to that genre, as the novel does not include any instances of fictional technology. Mandel has stated that the issue of labeling her work science fiction (as opposed to literary fiction) has followed her through all her novels. Mandel's early work has been classified as crime fiction, and she has stated she consciously chose to avoid overtones of mystery and crime in this work in order to avoid being "pigeonholed" as a mystery novelist.

Film adaptation

A film adaptation of the novel is in development by Scott Steindorff, producer of adaptations such as Love in the Time of Cholera and The Human Stain.

Awards

The novel won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in May 2015, beating novels including The Girl with All the Gifts and Memory of Water. The committee highlighted the novel's focus on the survival of human culture after an apocalypse, as opposed to the survival of humanity itself. The novel was also nominated for the National Book Award, ultimately losing to Phil Klay's short story cycle Redeployment. It was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, as well as the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.

The novel won the Toronto Book Award in October 2015.

References

Station Eleven Wikipedia

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