Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel

I’m not complaining-we’re talking about the least sympathetic problem in the world here-but it probably made the writing of The Glass Hotel a little slower than it might have been. If you have the unbelievable good fortune to have written an immensely successful book, then with the book that follows, there’s a sense of an invisible audience peering over your shoulder. I’ll ask you the same question: Did you feel any pressure writing The Glass Hotel after the enormous success you had with Station Eleven?Įmily St. A total departure from Station Eleven, The Glass Hotel shows Mandel cannot be confined to one genre and is willing to take chances to evolve as a writer-a quality bound to bring her even more accolades as readers discover this book.Īllan Vorda: When I interviewed Jennifer Egan about her novel Manhattan Beach, I asked if she felt any pressure to follow up her Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad. Knopf, $26.95), involves a Ponzi scheme inspired by the Bernie Madoff debacle, and so much more. Mandel’s latest novel, The Glass Hotel ( Alfred A. From there was a sudden departure with Station Eleven, a dystopian work that became a runaway bestseller, one with the unusual distinction of being nominated for both the National Book Award and the Hugo Award.

“If I hadn’t bent down that day and picked up that weekly newspaper, this entire life I’ve built might not have happened,” she told Publishers Weekly in 2012.īefore Mandel left Canada she had already started writing her first novel, Last Night in Montreal, which in turn was followed by The Singer’s Gun and The Lola Quartet-each of which might be termed detective-noir novels. At eighteen she left school to study ballet and contemporary dance at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, but one day she picked up a free newspaper and read a book review, and her entire life changed: she began corresponding with the review’s author and the pair struck up a romance and moved to New York City, where Mandel subsequently met the man who became her husband. John Mandel was born in 1979 and raised on Denman Island, off the coast of British Columbia, Canada.

Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel