When I was offered a copy of Station Eleven to read, my initial response was: “Another post-apocalyptic novel, I’m really not sure…” Because as with vampire lovers and  alpha were-wolf love triangles, I have been feeling a tad over the whole future dystopia / post-apocalyptic deal. However, as Station Eleven proves, it’s not the genre but how the genre is executed that really counts.

For me, Station Eleven was an exceptional read—but let’s start with a quick look at what it’s all about, beyond the “post-apocalyptic” tag.

Here’s what the cover material says:

“[WEEK] ONE: The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the earth like a neutron bomb. News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%.

WEEK [THREE]: Civilization has crumbled.

YEAR TWENTY: A band of actors and musicians called the Travelling Symphony move through their territories performing concerts and Shakespeare to the settlements that have grown up there. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe. But now a new danger looms…

STATION ELEVEN

Moving backwards and forwards in time, from the glittering years just before the collapse to the strange and altered world that exists twenty years after, Station Eleven charts the unexpected twists of fate that connect six people: famous actor Arthur Leander; Jeevan – warned about the flu just in time; Arthur’s first wife, Miranda; Arthur’s oldest friend, Clark; Kirsten, a young actress with the Travelling Symphony; and a mysterious and self-proclaimed ‘prophet’…”

That’s a fair enough summation, as a lead-in. For me, though, the most important aspect of the novel is that while it is post-apocalyptic fiction and makes a reasonable fist of exploring what a world without electricity and mass transport—but possibly far more critically—modern medicine and public health engineering could “look” like, this is far more a book about people and the connections—sometimes curious and often fragile—that bind us together.  It’s a story of the emotional experience of survival, far more than the physical, and in that sense also explores what a statement like “Survival Is Insufficient”—the Star Trek derived tagline of the Travelling Symphony—means for both different individuals and society. I also felt that as Station Eleven moved back and forward between present and future, pre- and post-apocalypse, the exploration of what makes existence sufficient was explored in the context of both experiences—and that’s a big part of what makes the book so interesting.

What I loved about Station Eleven was its exploration of a variety of different people, what makes us tick as human beings, and how we respond to life and circumstances (often very differently, obviously), at a range of different levels, from the personal to the societal. I also really enjoyed the individual characters and their development, particularly noting Kristen (possibly “the” central character although the point-of-view shifts a lot) and Miranda, Arthur and Clive, and Deevan and his brother in the immediate post-apocalyptic period. But it’s one of those books where just about every character is of interest. I also loved the idea of the Travelling Symphony. And the way people and events in the book are connected, not least by “Station Eleven” itself—but not necessarily in a direct or “cause and effect” way. (To illustrate what I mean by that, the most directly comparable storytelling I can think of is the 2004 film Crash.) And although I also loved Kate Atkinson’s time-shift novel, Life After Life, I do think readers will find Station Eleven’s movement between time periods easier to follow.

I also really liked that this was, despite the post-apocalyptic premise, a hopeful book.

In terms of what I didn’t like, there was a sequence of action toward the end of the book, mainly how that particular sequence resolved, that I wasn’t 100% certain I was convinced by. “Would a character in that situation, given what we know of his (limited) life experience and value set, really respond/act in that way?” I asked myself. But having said that, I couldn’t martial compelling argument to persuade myself that he would not. Suffice it to say that in terms of suspension of disbelief, I experienced a momentary flicker of uncertainty—but in the context of loving the entire book, that makes for pretty small beer as criticism goes.

In short, I highly recommend Station Eleven.

If you enjoy books such as Justin Cronin’s The Passage (referenced in the novel, in fact), Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Creyke, or Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, then you’ll want to put Station Eleven on your reading list.

And in very good news for NZ readers, I understand Emily St. John Mandel will be attending the forthcoming Auckland Writers’ Festival.

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Additional Information:

I read an uncorrected proof, 336 pp, of the UK hardcover edition of Station Eleven (2014), published by Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan. The proof copy was supplied by a representative of Macmillan Publishers Ltd.