Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel

From the author of Station Eleven comes a mind-bending novel that begins with a party in Los Angeles in 2031, which fragments into different characters living altered lives in alternative realities. The novel opens in an America in the midst of civil war. But finally, there is some hope when the Republic of California is declared, and the curfew in Los Angeles is finally lifted. People gather to celebrate at a party, but some of the people shouldn’t be there – doppelgangers arrive from an alternative America where there is one state and lots of surveillance.

One of the central characters is Ari, newly released from prison and living with a flatmate, Gloria. After things go badly wrong at the party, she experiences very different lives with different people before finding herself in Paris, haunted by that night.  She still wonders what really happened at that party – when the host disappeared, never to return again, and Nico, a doppelganger of her flatmate Gloria, appeared. But in a further fragmentation, in an alternative world, Ari has a different life yet again.

Exit Party is a novel about freedom, surveillance, survival, art, love and loss, spanning time and space. Unforgettable and compelling, this novelist writes original, highly thought-provoking books.

Reviewer: Karen McMillan

Picador