Station 11, by Emily St. John Mandel

Eerily poignant to read post-COVID, this book is a gripping reflection on relationships, community, and the arts in a post-apocalyptic world. "Station 11" was first published in 2014. As I read, I felt a sense of dread and knowing that the first readers pre-COVID certainly did not have. The book involves a highly contagious flu pandemic that nearly obliterates civilization, and shifts timelines throughout - the reader gets to time travel from pre-pandemic, to desperate early pandemic days, to a new post-pandemic world, and back again.

I found myself strangely judging of Mandel's execution of an unfolding pandemic. As a young person who lived through COVID, it was an odd thing to read the chapters of destabilizing global pandemic news breaking and think "I've been through it", and "that's not how it would go". Of course, Mandel's invented pandemic is ratcheted up to extremes. In the book, the illness spreads lightning-fast and kills most people within 48 hours of infection - much more akin to a blockbuster sci-fi film than the reality of COVID's spread. But much of the pandemic plot felt close to home - the psychological effects of breaking news, the fear-filled and desperate actions of the general public as reality sets in - and I saw discrepancies that I could only identify as a young woman living in this age. As I read and noticed these, I felt slightly disoriented - it's rare to read a piece of post-apocalyptic fiction and feel the need to fact-check!

Beyond the compare-contrast of the book's invented Georgia Flu pandemic and my own experience with COVID, I really enjoyed Mandel's treatment of the centrality of art to human civilization. The book centers around a troupe of performers known as the Traveling Symphony; despite great risk of danger, they travel the desolate and unpredictable land formerly known as the United States to bring Shakespeare and music to others. In the book (and in life), the creation of art is both brave and essential.