Station Eleven

 Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is an eerie post-apocalyptic novel. I was reminded of California by Edan Lepucki and Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins. All are exciting page turners. All have evil messianic figures. And all are well received, though Station Eleven is the most popular of the group. St. John Mandel is a gifted writer, and there are scenes in the novel of cities slowly shutting down during a bad flu pandemic that are beautiful and terrifying. In fact, the book is a collection of excellent scenes: a party in Los Angeles, a stranded group at an airport in the Midwest, a man dying on stage during King Lear. The connecting threads are varying degrees of successful. Not everything coheres, and many elements are under-developed, including the title symbol. Some late scenes of violence are cinematic, more like a summer blockbuster than a realist novel. Of the dystopian trilogy mentioned above, I would probably most recommend Gold Fame Citrus, imperfect but more bizarre and original. Still, I read Station Eleven quickly and was entertained the whole way.