It is not often the case that you embark on reading a best-selling book award finalist and have no idea what the novel is about. I lucked out, both in a sense that each page and plot twist was a surprise, and then in the sense that the book is premised on an epidemic. I am fascinated with epidemiology. In sixth grade, I used to read the goriest passages from Richard Preston's
The Hot Zone. In college, my first major was microbiology because I wanted to become a virologist, but math is not my strong suit, so I get my epidemiological fix through books. My interest isn't even merely quite about the power of a small virus that can tear through civilization, it is about the post-apocalyptic humanity (or lack thereof) that comes with it, in books like
Parasites Like Us by
Adam Johnson,
Blindness by Jose Saramago, Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam series, and now
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.
I finished this book two years ago--exactly two years to the date I started drafting this post (oops!)--and with the benefit of hindsight I can still say that I really enjoyed this book and have recommended it on many occasions.
Mandel, Emily St. John.
Station Eleven. New York: Vintage Books, 2014.
