Material destruction never trumps emotional ties and the life force, no matter how vast and deep that destruction might be. Mandel’s perspective is, in its way, tough-minded. In The Glass Hotel, a corrupt financier destroys many people’s lives, but empathic connections among them remain even after the worst has happened, stubborn signs of life. In Station Eleven, a pandemic far worse than Covid really does end civilization as we know it, but the few survivors find courage in art and one another, and life goes on. Terrible things happen in her books-worlds end, lives crash, large numbers of people die-but even as Mandel looks at these events without flinching, she also always finds a way to upend our usual takes on them. John Mandel, author of six novels, including the post-apocalyptic Station Eleven, which also became an HBO limited series. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” might be the artistic mantra of Emily St.
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