Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel
Emily St. John Mandel's latest novel blends sci-fi with creeping dystopia to enormous effect
It’s 2031 in Los Angeles, the United States has collapsed, and the Republic of California is celebrating its lifted curfew with a night of partying. Emily St. John Mandel’s Exit Party is far from conventional sci-fi: it’s a dystopian whirlwind of a novel. Protagonist Ari is 48, newly released from prison, and ready to begin her life anew. She and her roommate Gloria attend friend Kareem’s party, and what should be a night of freedom quickly turns into chaos. 'Doubles' of party attendees mysteriously arrive – they look the same, but have different names and lives, and it seems like they’ve arrived from a different universe altogether.
Mandel’s Exit Party intertwines dual narratives, fracturing time. With the strange events of the party looming over the narrative, the novel is a strange puzzle that the reader slowly pieces together. In a dizzying series of events, Ari moves from California, to militia work in Ohio, to art collecting in Paris. Meanwhile, a parallel universe to Ari’s world is slowly revealed throughout the novel – one of a singular United State militantly run by the Service through surveillance drones and citizen informers. Through a botched teleportation experiment, characters are transported into worlds they don’t belong to, with no way to get back. Mandel’s creative and emotional craftsmanship tells a story of missing people, lost families and unexpected endings.
