book-reviews

Some of my Favourite Authors – Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel’s novels explore connections and human nature.

List of Publications

Last Night in Montreal, 2009

The Singers Gun, 2010

The Lola Quartet, 2012

Station Eleven, 2014

The Glass Hotel, 2020

Sea of Tranquility, 2022

Introduction

I discovered Emily St. John Mandel in 2020 during Covid when I read her breakthrough novel, Station Eleven, and completely and utterly fell in love with it. By the time I read Sea of Tranquility and The Glass Hotel (in the ‘wrong’ order, I later realised), I was also completely and utterly in love with Ms Mandel and her writing.

The Author

Ms Mandel is a Canadian who now lives in New York. She was born in 1979. She lived with her family in a remote part of Canada, where she was homeschooled. During her home-schooling period, she got into the habit of writing in a journal every day, which may have signalled been the start of her writing career. However, at 18 she went on to study dance in Toronto and did not publish her first novel until she was 30.

The Books.

Ms Mandel has written six novels which, for me, fall into two distinct groupings. The first three are described as crime fiction, which, after romance, is my least favourite genre. As a result, I haven’t read these but probably should! Maybe as a result of writing this chapter and feeling like a fraud for saying I’m a fan and only having read 50% of her work, I now will!

I have, of course, read her latter three novels, Station Eleven, The Glass Hotel and Sea of Tranquility. All of which are compelling and beautiful and are up there among the best books I have ever read. It’s hard to assign them a genre and while they might sit in the dystopian science fiction category, that surely does them a disservice as they are so much more than that. They are fundamentally about people and their nuances and relationships, liberally doused with elements of mystery, time travel, science fiction and dystopia.

One thing that is important to note is that while these three books are all standalone novels, they are also connected to each other through characters, time, place, events, and material objects. It is clear that Ms Mandel is interested in the idea of alternative realities and in many ways, this is reflected in her novels, which, it could be argued, are all alterative versions of each other. You can read them in order or however you fancy without reducing your enjoyment or encountering spoilers. I will review them in the order that I read them.

Station Eleven.

God, I love this book. A thoughtful, gently nostalgic, beautifully written, before and after, journey through a post-pandemic apocalyptic world. The main character is child when a lethal flu virus destroys 99.9% of the world’s population. The story jumps back and forth between the past, when the virus first hit, and the future, where she is a young woman making her was as part of a travelling theatre company, in a world that is forever changed.

The book has been nominated for and won several awards and was adapted into a TV series but for me, as is so often the case, lacked the depth and elegance of the book.

The plot is meticulous and intricate and unfolds slowly, bit by bit, as the jigsaw pieces fall into place, and we learn how all the characters are connected and everything satisfyingly and elegantly comes together. All the characters are vivid on the page and the book is deeply empathic towards them, even the bad guys who are, like all the characters, victims of their own tragedy, trauma and circumstance.

The book and the author hold a refreshingly positive view of human nature. The general feel of Station Eleven is one of peace and hope and not the violent and frightening post-apocalyptical worlds that we are so used to seeing in this genre. Although there had been violence and horror in the early days after the pandemic, this is rare in the new world, where most people are kind, loving, supportive and cooperative.

The author’s crystal clear and unpretentious writing style makes for an enjoyable and easy read which is, at the same time, beautifully and evocatively descriptive. The story contains a bit of something for everyone – action, romance, drama and science fiction – and as such, has a wide appeal and will likely be enjoyed by people who might at first think it is not for them. Please read it. You will not be disappointed. In fact, I can guarantee that you will be compelled to read her other books in quick succession.

Sea of Tranquility

I bought this as soon as it was released in 2022. After enjoying Station Eleven so much, I hoped that it would be as good. It exceeded my expectations. Another incredible book. Satisfying and delighting in every possible way. I devoured it in two days while on holiday in Devon and one morning, desperate to finish the last few pages, kept my friends waiting on our way out to the beach and found myself lovingly stroking the cover long after I had finished reading.

A beautifully written tale of time travel, mind-boggling meta-physics, wonderful characters, elegant connections and coincidences, love, kindness and humanity that spans a period of 500 years, Sea of Tranquillity takes us to the moon and back (literally). Sea of Tranquility was one of Barak Obama’s best books of 2022.

Ms Mandel is a rare thing. A truly gifted writer. Her plots are clever. Her writing is pure. Her settings and characters sing on the page and yet she is skilfully economical with her words and descriptions. I felt every emotion her characters experienced. I worried for them. I exalted with them. I smiled. I laughed out loud. I cried a little. I had some enormous “Ah!” moments as connections and plot twists gradually revealed themselves.

There were some themes that echoed those of Station Eleven, namely pandemics and people connected by past encounters and relationships, and material objects. Like Station Eleven, these connections gradually reveal themselves in heart-warmingly startling ways. I love the way how Ms Mandel crafts subject matter that is technically pure sci-fi into something totally “ungeeky” and utterly believable and every-day. She makes living in a dome on the moon and flying about in supersonic hovercraft and airships seem entirely natural and normal.

A character in the book, a writer called Olive Llewellyn, receives some feedback from a reader to the effect that her own book was a confusing collection of narrative strands that never came together. This is not true of Emily St. John Mandel. What begins as an apparently disparate collection of narrative strands, flow comfortably through the book and weave naturally together at the end of the story. There is no confusion. There are no unanswered questions. Just glorious resolution and clarity.

Maybe that’s not entirely true? There is one enormous question that runs under the surface of the book and lingers on at the end, not for the characters who know the answer, but for the reader themselves. But I’ll leave you to discover and ponder that one for yourself.

The Glass Hotel

Needless to say as soon as I finished Sea of Tranquility and realised that Ms Mandel was in definitely not a ‘one-hit-wonder’ with Station Eleven I bought and started reading The Glass Hotel. Another wonderful book, it tells the tale of a woman who disappears from the deck of a container ship, the collapse of a Ponzi scheme, and how both events impact on all the peoples they touch and beyond. The Glass Hotel was listed as one of Barak Obama’s favourite books of 2020 (it’s fair to say that he is a fan of Ms Mandel) and a TV adaptation is currently in development. Much of this book and the ‘Glass Hotel’ itself are set on a remote part of Vancouver Island. The vivid descriptions of the wild and natural location resonated with me for a long time. I can still see it in my mind’s eye. I don’t know if it is based on a real place or not, but it made me long to go there, even if only in my dreams.

Although I have said that it doesn’t really matter what order you read the books in, I found myself wishing I had read this before I read The Sea of Tranquility because of all the connections between the two books. Connections are a recurring theme in all of Ms. Mandel’s books. Connections between people, objects, events and experiences. Connections that are known and unknown. Connections that are revealed and some that remain concealed. Connections that cross decades, generations, and continents. Connections within and between books, characters and their stories. All these connections are skilfully woven together in a way that is both natural and startling at the same time. The Glass Hotel is sad and subtly beautiful. It left me feeling completely satisfied with a soft, contented smile on my face.

Summary

There are many reasons why I love Emily St. John’s work. To list a few of the main ones; it is the imaginative and intricate plots, the complex and fascinating characters, the way she makes sci-fi feel so normal, the beautiful simplicity of the writing, the atmospheric settings, the compelling storytelling, the mysteries, the surprises, the connections. As a writer, I’d love to know and understand how she does it. Is it a gift? An effortless process that comes naturally to her? I doubt it. More likely the result of a lot of hard work and painstaking planning and editing. However, she does it, her books are all wonderful reads and ones that I would through recommend. As for me, I’m off to read The Singers Gun.

Fireman Tom

The writer won the 2024 Non-Fiction Competition with a heartfelt piece about storytelling, highlighting its profound impact on human behavior.

I know I only posted yesterday, but last night I found out that I had won the Solihull Writers Workshop 2024 Non-Fiction Competition. It’s a rare occasion that I win anything and like all writers, I’m going to enjoy the hell and blow my own trumpet till my puff runs out and before the next onslaught of failure and rejection.

The brief was to write up to 1000 words on ‘why we tell stories’. I chose to use the piece to write a little memoir to my Dad who died last year…….

Fireman Tom (Why we tell stories.)

My father was a firefighter. A strong, kind, and handsome hero to us, his three little doting daughters, as well as to countless other souls he came into contact with in the course of his work. Every night, before we went to sleep, he would switch off the big light, sit on the edge of the bed and tell us a story. The hero of these stories was an imaginary figure called Fireman Tom. Every night we were enthralled by Tom’s latest exciting adventure. It was one of my favourite parts of the day. We would listen intently, silent and wide eyed as Fireman Tom rescued cats from tall trees and dogs from fast-flowing rivers, removed saucepans from small heads and freed skinny limbs from park railings, and regularly carried small children, just like us, to safety from fire and flood.

The parallels between my dad and Fireman Tom were not lost on me, and when he slowly told the story of the day in his low bed-time voice, it was him I saw in my mind’s eye. The way he looked when he got home in the evening, took off his uniform and tie and loosened his collar. His cobalt blue eyes. His thick dark Brylcreemed quiff. The hair on his strong tanned forearms, dark against the crisp white of his rolled-up shirt sleeves. His familiar scent of tobacco and Old Spice. Fireman Tom was my dad, and my dad was Fireman Tom.

Fireman Tom’s stories were always relatable and relevant to us. They were carefully suited to our ages and experiences. When we were very young, they were mostly about dogs and cats and playground mishaps. As we got older, so did the victims, and the accidents that befell them, portents about what might happen if we didn’t take care crossing the road, climbed or crawled into dangerous places, or played with matches. When Dad took a job as the Chief Fire Officer in a small town in Southern Rhodesia and we emigrated to Africa, Fireman Tom was rescuing small African boys from deep wells and saving families from raging bush fires.

But, like all things, we grew up and grew out of bedtime stories. More and more often our parents were in bed before us, especially at weekends. Now our bedtimes stories were reading teen magazines in bed, late-night horror movies or chatting on the phone for hours to our girlfriends. Fireman Tom and his adventures seemed childish and irrelevant and far behind us. But were they…?

Humans have told stories since the beginning of time. Indeed, Will Storr in The Science of Storytelling[1] states that storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human. He says that the stories we hear can shape who we are. That they can drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions and mould our beliefs. So, what exactly is it about stories and storytellers that can influence us in such a way?

Over the past couple of decades there has been a glut of research into why humans tell stories to each other and how these stories affect us and alter our thoughts and behaviours. Jeremy Adam Smith, in an online article for Greater Good Magazine in 2016[2], says that “Stories are told in the body.” Essentially, the research tells us that we feel stories – that a good story, well-told, can make the listener (or the reader) feel that they are inside the story. That they are living the experience with the character in the story, triggering a real physical and emotional reaction and several neurochemical reactions in their brains and bodies. If we feel stressed or excited by the situation in the story, this can trigger the fight or flight mechanism and the release of adrenaline in our bodies. If we are emotionally invested in, and empathise with, the character, this can cause the release of oxytocin, the so-called “caring” hormone that is present in nursing mothers.

Because we feel these things more when we experience them in the context of a story than we would if we were just presented with the facts, the memories of them stay with us and change our thoughts and behaviours. If my dad had just told us that many children are killed or injured crossing the road every day, and many more are killed or injured in house fires, I wonder if I would be holding my granddaughter’s hand quite as tightly when we cross the road together, or be warning her quite as seriously about the dangers of playing with or near an open flame. I wonder if I would be telling her quite as vehemently not to get too close to the riverbank. I wonder if I would always be seeking out the fire exits on a trip to the cinema or a concert. I wonder if I would hold the same high levels of trust and respect for members of the emergency services.

But of course, storytelling is about much more than influencing other’s thoughts and behaviours in a significant and lasting way. It is also about amusement and entertainment, establishing connections, forming and strengthening relationships and human bonds. Those moments spent with my father before we went to sleep each night were among the most precious of my life. Warm and cosy. Calm and loving. All his attention focused on us and ours on him. Yes, we were learning valuable life lessons through Fireman Tom’s adventures, but we were also learning about our father. About what he did at work all day. About who he was and what was important to him. About how much he loved and cared for us and how he would always keep us safe.

My strong, loving father finally succumbed to dementia last year with his three daughters at his bedside.

I wonder what Fireman Tom is doing now.

[1] Will Storr, The Science of Storytelling, Harry N. Abrams, 2020

[2] Jeremy Adam Smith, The Science of the Story, Greater Good Magazine, 2016

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Book Review – 101 Horror Books to Read Before You Are Murdered by Sadie Hartmann (Mother Horror)

This book features a curated collection of underrated horror books, categorized by type, with additional author recommendations.

Oh my! I am sooo happy to have stumbled across this book. Its contents have created a mouthwatering new TBR list that will potentially keep me going for years (OK, maybe a year or several months)!

The book is a lovingly curated collection of the best underrated horror books to have been written in the last few decades. The book itself is a thing of beauty in the way it is laid out and illustrated. Written by Sadie Hartmann (aka Mother Horror on social media), of Night Worms Publishing and Dark Heart, it categorises and sub-categorises the books by horror type and provides publication details, a synopsis, and some notes on themes, tone and style. There are Author Spotlights in each section which lists their own books and some of their personal reading recommendations.

I’ve only read a handful of the 101 titles listed between its covers and have been wanting to read several more, but largely these are all books that I have not read. To unashamedly steal the Goodreads categories:

Currently Reading: Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Read: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Silence by Tim Lebbon and The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson,

Want to read: The Bone Weaver’s Orchard by Sarah Read, Bird Box by Josh Malerman, Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica and I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid.

That leaves 93 new books for me to add to my list and start getting my teeth into.

But the featured Author Spotlights list their own books and their personal horror recommendations, adding even more to the list as these are not counted in the 101 main titles.

Of them, I have read (and loved) all of Paul Tremblay’s novels; A Head Full of Ghosts, The Pallbearers Club, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, The Cabin at the End of the World and Survivor Song. I haven’t read any of his recommendations, but The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson has long been a Want to Read. Another featured author, Christopher Buehlman (who I have not read), also includes this in his recommendations. I’m going to have to prioritise this one.

I’ve read several of Stephen Graham Jones books, The Only Good Indians, My Heart is a Chainsaw and Don’t Fear the Ripper and one of his recommendations, It by Stephen King.

Josh Malerman is someone I definitely need to get into. Bird Box is already on my list and I have already read and loved two of his recommendations, The Exorcist by Willima Peter Blatty and Perfume by Patrick Suskind

I loved The Hunger by Alma Katsu and The Only Good Indians is one of her recommendations.

Tananarive Due, is an author I have never read but I have read two of her recommendations, Beloved by Toni Morrison and again, The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones.

Similarly, I have not read Ania Ahlborn but have read all three of her recommendations, Misery by Stephen king, Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin and Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

Finally, I have never read any V Castro, Adam Nevill or Grady Hendrix or any of their recommendations with the exception of Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

All in all, the Author Spotlights add another 81 books to the list!

Oh, how I love a list. It feeds the OCD part of me (that you might have observed within my ramblings above) in a disturbingly satisfying way. But I also love a reason to push me out of my reading comfort zone and explore new authors and genres. Horror per se is not a new genre for me, but some types of horror are. The books I have read mostly fall into Hartmann’s Human Monsters and Natural Order categories, and there are some categories that I haven’t even dipped my toe into such as Paranormal and Supernatural. So many books to read. So little time! I’d better get started!

But, before I go, a parting word on Short Story Collections. There is whole section of the book devoted to these. In fact, Hartmann states that she believes short fiction is one of the best formats for horror. I’m ashamed to say then that I tend to shy away from these as I prefer to get my teeth stuck into a full-length novel. For me, the longer the better! But maybe I’ll give some of these a go. After I’ve read the 174 new books on my TBR list that is ……….

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