Spoilers might be present from this point on

I first found out about the TV series, and only then made the connection that it was based on a book written by Emily St. John Mandel.

Since I had just read Sea of Tranquility, also written by her, a book I liked very much, I decided to give this one a try as well. That way, if I got into the series, I would also have the more in-depth original version.

While reading Sea of Tranquility, I suspected that certain references in the book were connected to the author (and that was without even knowing Station Eleven existed).

Now that I’ve read this one too, yes, in Sea of Tranquility one of the characters is actually the author herself (or at least heavily inspired by the author’s real life), and she makes references to events from Station Eleven, including the book’s adaptation into a TV series.

I like that she built this reference in, like an Easter egg in another book.

But now let me get back to Station Eleven.

The story begins in Toronto, at a performance of the play King Lear. The lead actor, Arthur Leander, has a heart attack on stage. Although Jeevan Chaudhary jumps from the audience to try to resuscitate him, he cannot be saved, and he dies in front of Kirsten Raymonde, a young actress who is part of the play. It will be an evening that marks them both.

Shortly after, that evening will mark everyone else in the world, for a very different reason.

That same night, a virus (which would come to be known as the Georgia flu) spreads rapidly across the world, with a mortality rate of over 99%.

From that point on, the book follows the story of several characters, and the episodes are interwoven chronologically, some before the pandemic, others after.

But all of these characters are somehow connected to Arthur, who was part of some of their lives or simply influenced them.

Most of the time we follow Kirsten, who is part of a caravan of actors and musicians (the Traveling Symphony) that goes from town to town, or what’s left of them after the pandemic, performing Shakespeare plays or playing classical music. It’s all they know how to do, and their purpose is to keep this art form alive, while also entertaining the survivors. It’s their way of carrying on in a world that has lost any resemblance to the one before.

I find the idea of this caravan fascinating, wandering all year round around Lake Michigan, staging plays or making music, while all around is a wasteland and life is somewhat dangerous, coming with the uncertainty of what tomorrow brings.

The part at the end of chapter 1, where all the things that no longer exist because of this pandemic are listed, strikes me as an exaggeration. I mean, it’s hard for me to understand how everything could become so degraded in such a short time, and how people could revert to caveman habits.

However, I did find it amusing that there’s a prophet in one of the towns. Obviously, when 99.99% of people die, somehow one of these idiots always slips through and starts a cult where they are the chosen ones and he needs more young wives.

By the same logic, even if we assume that a large part of the population was affected and died, statistically there’s a good chance that specialists in various fields also survived, so that not everything would go to ruin.

Why is it called “Station Eleven”?

Well, I think this is what the author does well, she builds these layers upon layers of context and information, which become relevant and tie the story together much better.

Station Eleven is the name of a comic book that one of Arthur’s wives was working on, a comic book that he later gives to Kirsten as a gift. She goes on to keep it for years throughout the pandemic, and it is eventually found in the possession of that crazy prophet, who is Arthur’s son (by one of his other wives).

It sounds very far-fetched now, as I list all these events, but the book flows so well, along with the unfolding of the plot, that you don’t notice how tangled up the whole situation is.

The book does a pretty good job of outlining the characters’ stories. Arthur, although no longer part of the book’s present-day action, remains the main pillar, a sort of anchor.

This world in which all the survivors have lost someone is perfectly captured in the book:

hell is the absence of people you long for

At the end, as they arrive at the Museum of Civilization, which was founded by Arthur’s best friend (we still can’t get away from him), Clark, we get a kind of circle coming full. Clark meets the last person who saw Arthur alive, Kirsten.

The book ends on a note of optimism: electric lights can be seen somewhere in the distance, in a city where people have probably found a way to use the pre-Georgia flu infrastructure.