Exit Party

The mega-selling author of Station Eleven spins an evocative epic about freedom, surveillance and the inability to forget, as a strange party in a near-future America torn by civil war casts long shadows on one of the participants' new life in Paris years later.

From the bestselling author of Station Eleven, Exit Party is Emily St. John Mandel’s new mind-bending epic: a story of crimes committed and loves lost across space and time.

2031. America is at war with itself, but for the first time in weeks there is some hope: the Republic of California has been declared, the curfew in Los Angeles is lifted, and everyone in the city is going to a party.

Ari, newly released from prison, arrives with her friend Gloria just as a fragile new era begins. But there are people at the party who shouldn’t be there. Something is very wrong . . .

Years later, living a different life in Paris, Ari remains haunted by that night. Whatever happened at the party fractured her sense of reality – and may hold the key to a very different world.

Exit Party is Emily St. John Mandel’s electrifying new novel about freedom and surveillance, art and survival, love and loss in a broken world.

MEDIA REVIEWS

An Emily St. John Mandel novel is always cause for excitement . . . Another kaleidoscopic, genre-and-planet-spanning jewel of a book. I’ll let her take me everywhere and anywhere. - Emily Temple, LitHub

A glittering puzzle box of a novel . . . [The] novel brilliantly ties the notion of parallel timelines to a political theme, positing a dark twinship between chaos and totalitarianism. . . . This is [Mandel’s] best novel since Station Eleven, a cause for rejoicing among her fans and an inspiration for newbies to dive into the backlist. Both a thrilling read and a virtuoso demonstration of the moral and philosophical possibilities of speculative fiction - Kirkus (Starred Review)

Mandel always writes with clarity and precision. Her perceptive new dystopian novel explores what is lost in a rush to safety; it’s a hymn to what falls when the center doesn’t hold - Library Journal (Starred Review)

As ever in her own wholly original and singular way, Mandel offers up a completely compelling, richly rendered yarn that's sure to generate both major interest and discussion - Booklist (Starred Review)

Masterful . . . a dizzying story of doubles and parallel universes. Mandel's assured tale offers bracing commentary on the dangers of divisiveness and surveillance, and the propulsive plot is fueled by the unfolding mystery of the initiating party scene. It's a tour de force - Publishers Weekly