When the current pandemic arrived, there were many “what to read in a pandemic” lists that circulated. Almost of all of them included this book by Emily St. John Mandel. It has taken me awhile to get up the nerve to read a book about a pandemic in the middle of a pandemic, but I finally did it and you should too!

This a story of intertwining lives, the courage and resilience it takes to  survive and a reminder that art, music and history are  the ways we remind ourselves of who we are.  Engaging but thoughtful, humorous yet profound this is a book that makes you grateful you read it.

On the night that the world ended, Kirsten Raymonde was waiting in Alex Leander’s dressing room for the cue to go on stage. Leander, a famous Hollywood actor, was playing King Lear and Kirsten, along with two other young girls were playing the ghosts of King Lear’s daughters, flitting and moving across the stage as Alex, as Lear, brooded on what his life had become. The end of the world came swiftly that night. Alex, on stage, collapsed midway through the play and although a man in the audience tried to save him, Alex was gone. By the end of the week many more had died in the pandemic that enveloped the world and in a month the power grid, electricity and the internet were gone and the world as they knew it had ended.

Fifteen years in the future, Kirsten is a member of a traveling band of musicians and actors called the Traveling Symphony.  Traveling in a small convoy of old trucks pulled by horses and mules, this small itinerant band goes from town to town, performing classical music and Shakespeare. Kirsten remembers little of that night when Alex died on stage, but she still has the comic books he gave her before going on stage. Entitled Station Eleven, it is a graphic novel about a space station in a post apocalyptic world. Somehow those books, drawn and written by Alex’s first wife, have become an important connection, a lodestone, to a life she barely remembers.

Interweaving the stories of Alex Leander, his best friend, his first wife and even the man who tried to save him on the night he died, we begin to see the the inexplicable and strange twists of fate that connect these individuals even now in a world that is struggling to be reborn.

Brenda’s Rating: *****(5 Out Of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: Marian. Lauren, Sharon and keith

Book Study Worthy? Yes!

Read in ebook format.