Go to the Product Page for Station Eleven.
This month we’re going with Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mendel, a book that’s becoming something of a modern classic. Released in 2014, Station Eleven was already an award winning novel that had sold 1.5 million copies by 2020 when in 2021 it got an HBO Mini-series adaptation that along with its content and the state of the world thrust it back into the spotlight. I can’t really talk about the book too much without including some spoilers for early chapters so if you want to go in blind here’s your warning to hop off now.
Station Eleven is a post apocalyptic dystopian novel set in the Great Lakes area after a deadly pandemic ravaged the world and brought down modern infrastructure. Similar to its contemporaries that got huge renewed interest during the Covid-19 pandemic such as The Dog Stars and… Pandemic… Station Eleven got a sudden resurgence in popularity and relevancy with its tragic but hopeful take on a global healthcare disaster. It jumps between survivors at the beginning weeks of the pandemic and then to twenty years after and looks at the remnants of society primarily through the lens of Kirsten, a young actress who is part of an armed travelling band of actors who are trying to keep stories and entertainment alive.
The Mini-series’ decision to change the year of the pandemic to 2020 is quite telling and I really get it. When I first started reading this book it was between December of 2019 and January of 2020, I was home sick and I’d started the book on a whim knowing that it was well regarded. I’d just finished the first few chapters and decided I needed a break from how visceral and dark the chapter of Jeevan in a grocery store on the phone with his friend working in the hospital, as he calls back throughout the night for more info on the pandemic and his friend warns him of the turn around time and how doomed everyone working that night was and begins violently coughing himself, urging Jeevan to get out of the city. It really hit hard. I put the book down and opened my computer for the first time that day and looked at the news headlines to see MSN talking about a new “coronavirus” from out of China with cases quickly spreading. It was my first time hearing about it personally and I joked about how goofy the timing was, having no idea just how bad it was going to get. I don’t know if my timing for reading Station Eleven made it better or worse but it certainly made it more memorable, almost impossible to untangle from the first hand experiences of watching a pandemic spread, and I don’t think anyone from this generation will ever be able to read it without making those comparisons. The core message of hope and what people can survive and rebuild from was a comforting message at the time, and I hope it still will be for anyone who reads it now.
