Book report 19
By A. Bae Hel
Exit Party
Emily St. James Mandel
In the not-too-distant future the USA has come undone. Or it has moved further into its surveillance state. In in this future spectacularly ordinary people live lives and make decisions that determine their next life.
ESJM writes of these people like she has known them and has listened to their stories of escaping their past to perhaps a small forgotten island off the west coast. Or perhaps to a shanty town where people go be becomes ghosts. This theme, of choices and decisions branching a life off into the next one runs through all her books.
There is just so much here. Easter eggs. The ability to place so beautifully the steps that lead one to become on the edges of what we think of as correct society. I was barely into the book when I found myself googling the artist Lucas Alkaitis and the painting Swan Dive. I could see it in my mind, a painting I had surely seen before somewhere. The blues and light of the ocean, the diver’s feet disappearing into the blue, just up there in the corner. How can it be that it has only ever existed in the pages of her novels?
She creates a reality with the same words the rest of us use. It is beyond talent; it is rather miraculous.
“There is so much you have to ignore to live peacefully in a place like this”
Initially when I read this line, I was struck how it perfectly expresses the wider world we live in, the global issues, the world coming undone. But on each reread I can see how it expresses the state we cultivate even on our little remote island on the edge. A place like this is anywhere and everywhere. Both side by side.
Ultimately to me the mark of an amazing novel is its ability to drive me to put it down while I search out elements convinced of the authenticity of that piece of the story. I have reflective holographic tape in my shopping cart online. For craft purposes of course.
We are fortunate to live in a world and a timeline where ESJM introduces us to these characters and tells us their stories. We come away better for having lived in her world for even a brief time.
