- Authors & Illustrators
- Emily St. John Mandel
- Sea of Tranquility
Sea of Tranquility
Emily st. john mandel.
Brilliant . . . a fiercely original creation Observer
It is heaven to be immersed in the waters of Mandel's imagination . . . so wise, so graceful, so rich . . . I loved Sea of Tranquility Naomi Alderman, Women's Prize-winning author of The Power
A spiralling, transportive triumph of storytelling - sci-fi with soul Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies
An ambitious time-travelling panorama of pandemics and parallel worlds Guardian
Books by Emily St. John Mandel
Station Eleven
The Glass Hotel
Last Night in Montreal
The Lola Quartet
The Singer's Gun
Sparknotes AI
Sea of tranquility — emily st. john mandel.
In 1912, Edwin St. John St. Andrew, a young man from a noble English family, sparks a scandal by publicly opposing the British Raj. As a consequence, his father banishes him to Canada. Edwin meanders from Halifax to Victoria, British Columbia, but due to its stark resemblance to English high society, he leaves for Caiette, a remote settlement on Vancouver Island. In the forest there, Edwin has a mysterious experience, feeling as though he's within an expansive, dark space, accompanied by unrecognizable sounds, including a violin. A man named Roberts, who claims to be a priest, interrogates him about his experience but flees upon Edwin's growing suspicion.
Fast forward to 2020, Mirella Kessler, a friend of Vincent Alkaitis who vanished during the events of "The Glass Hotel," attempts to trace her by attending an art performance by Vincent's brother, Paul Smith. Here, Paul plays a video Vincent filmed during her childhood, in which she, like Edwin, is briefly transported from a forest to a large, dark space reminiscent of a train station, with a violin echoing in the background. Learning of Vincent's disappearance at sea leaves Mirella shattered. However, a man named Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, who inadvertently reveals advanced knowledge of the COVID-19 pandemic, unnerves her with his questions about the video. Mirella recognizes him from a horrifying murder scene she witnessed in her Ohio childhood, yet he appears not to have aged.
In 2203, Olive Llewellyn, an acclaimed novelist from a Moon colony, is touring Earth, promoting her novel "Marienbad," which revolves around a fictitious influenza pandemic. In her busy schedule of media events and lectures, she misses the reports of actual viral outbreaks occurring worldwide. Gaspery-Jacques, who shares a name with a character in her novel, questions her during an interview about a passage in her book that describes a character experiencing a shift in reality similar to Edwin and Vincent.
Two centuries later, in 2401, Gaspery-Jacques, named after Olive's character, leads an ordinary life as a hotel detective in another Moon colony. His genius sister, Zoey, a physicist like their late mother, is investigating the peculiar phenomena experienced by Edwin, Vincent, and Olive. Zoey theorizes that these events could prove the simulation hypothesis, pointing to potential data corruption within the simulation. She discloses her secret involvement with the Time Institute, the sole agency authorized to investigate time travel. Intrigued by the prospects of an extraordinary life, Gaspery-Jacques decides to join the institute despite the warning about its harsh bureaucracy. After years of training, he travels back in time to interview all potential witnesses of the anomaly.
Upon learning of Olive's impending death in a global pandemic, Gaspery-Jacques breaks protocol to warn her, enabling her to escape her fate and reunite with her family. Zoey and Gaspery-Jacques continue their investigation, but eventually get arrested. Even after discovering that Edwin's fate—death by the Spanish flu—remains unchanged, Gaspery-Jacques shows no remorse for his actions. His punishment is to be stranded in 20th-century Ohio, where he is implicated in a murder that Mirella had witnessed, leading to a life sentence.
Years later, Zoey, now a member of a different organization with time-travel capabilities, rescues the now sixty-year-old Gaspery-Jacques from his prison sentence, giving him a new identity and life as Alan Sami. Alan realizes that the anomaly is caused by the convergence of his past and future selves at the spaceport. After learning to play the violin and settling in Oklahoma City, Alan, on the fateful day, observes reality distort and mend itself as Edwin, Vincent, Olive, and his past selves appear before him.
Chapter Summaries
- Part 1 — Chapter 1
- Part 1 — Chapter 2
- Part 1 — Chapter 3
- Part 1 — Chapter 4
- Part 1 — Chapter 5
- Part 1 — Chapter 6
- Part 1 — Chapter 7
- Part 1 — Chapter 8
- Part 1 — Chapter 9
- Part 1 — Chapter 10
- Part 2 — Chapter 1
- Part 2 — Chapter 2
- Part 2 — Chapter 3
- Part 4 — Chapter 1
- Part 4 — Chapter 2
- Part 4 — Chapter 3
- Part 4 — Chapter 4
- Part 4 — Chapter 5
- Part 4 — Chapter 6
- Part 4 — Chapter 7
- Part 4 — Chapter 8
- Part 4 — Chapter 9
- Part 4 — Chapter 10
- Part 4 — Chapter 11
- Part 6 — Chapter 1
- Part 6 — Chapter 2
- Part 6 — Chapter 3
- Part 6 — Chapter 4
- Part 6 — Chapter 5
- Part 7 — Chapter 1
- Part 7 — Chapter 2
- Part 7 — Chapter 3
- Part 7 — Chapter 4
- Part 7 — Chapter 5
- Part 8 — Chapter 1
- Part 8 — Chapter 2
- Part 8 — Chapter 3
- Part 8 — Chapter 4
- Part 8 — Chapter 5
- Part 8 — Chapter 6
- Part 8 — Chapter 7
- Part 8 — Chapter 8
- Part 8 — Chapter 9
- Part 8 — Chapter 10
- Part 8 — Chapter 11
- Part 8 — Chapter 12
- Part 8 — Chapter 13
- Biggest New Books
- Non-Fiction
- All Categories
- First Readers Club Daily Giveaway
- How It Works
Sea of Tranquility
Embed our reviews widget for this book
Get the Book Marks Bulletin
Email address:
- Categories Fiction Fantasy Graphic Novels Historical Horror Literary Literature in Translation Mystery, Crime, & Thriller Poetry Romance Speculative Story Collections Non-Fiction Art Biography Criticism Culture Essays Film & TV Graphic Nonfiction Health History Investigative Journalism Memoir Music Nature Politics Religion Science Social Sciences Sports Technology Travel True Crime
August 26 – 30, 2024
- On Dostoevsky’s “The Crocodile”
- Al Pacino remembers his early years in the South Bronx
- On Bolaño’s “The Colonel’s Son.”
- Member Login
- Library Patron Login
- Get a Free Issue of our Ezine! Claim
Reviews of Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Sea of Tranquility
- BookBrowse Review:
- Critics' Consensus:
- Readers' Rating:
- First Published:
- Apr 5, 2022, 272 pages
- Mar 2023, 272 pages
- Literary Fiction
- Imaginary Locations
- Early 20th Century
- Dealing with Loss
- Philosophical
- Publication Information
- Write a Review
- Buy This Book
About This Book
- Reading Guide
Book Summary
The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core. Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him. When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe. A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.
No star burns forever. You can say "it's the end of the world" and mean it, but what gets lost in that kind of careless usage is that the world will eventually literally end. Not "civilization," whatever that is, but the actual planet. Which is not to say that those smaller endings aren't annihilating. A year before I began my training at the Time Institute, I went to a dinner party at my friend Ephrem's place. He was just back from a vacation on Earth, and he had a story about going on a walk in a cemetery with his daughter, Meiying, who was four at the time. Ephrem was an arborist. He liked to go to old cemeteries to look at the trees. But then they found the grave of another four-year-old girl, Ephrem told me, and he just wanted to leave after that. He was used to graveyards, he sought them out, he'd always said he didn't find them depressing, just peaceful, but that one grave just got to him. He looked at it and was unbearably sad. Also it was the worst kind of Earth ...
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
- What are some of the defining characteristics of society in each of the different time periods/centuries during which the novel takes place? What about how people live, work, and interact stays the same over time in this depiction of our future, and what changes?
- Did you identify most with any of the main characters in the novel—Edwin, Mirella, Gaspery, or Olive? What about their story resonated with you?
- Does the novel offer a clear explanation with regards to Vincent's role in making the video clip from the forest?
- If you were in Gaspery's shoes, would you have changed the past to save Olive and help Edwin? How do you think he felt about the consequences of his decisions? Did you think he did the right thing, despite ...
- "Beyond the Book" articles
- Free books to read and review (US only)
- Find books by time period, setting & theme
- Read-alike suggestions by book and author
- Book club discussions
- and much more!
- Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
- More about membership!
Media Reviews
Reader reviews, bookbrowse review.
Loneliness is a palpable theme in the novel, almost unbearably so. But the web of connectivity among the characters makes them members of a community, even if they don't get to know themselves how they fit into a larger picture. Like The Glass Hotel and Station Eleven , Sea of Tranquility is concerned with deep philosophical questions. The author considers the nature of reality, time and memory, the significance of art in perilous times, and what we owe one another as fellow human beings... continued
Full Review (668 words) This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today .
(Reviewed by Lisa Butts ).
Write your own review!
Beyond the Book
Fictional pandemics.
Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility features a character Mandel seems to have based loosely on herself: an author named Olive Llewellyn who is famous for writing a novel about a pandemic. Pandemics are a common trope in novels, particularly in the speculative or science fiction genre, with authors considering different imagined scenarios as to how a pandemic might occur and who might be affected. The following is a list of recent novels that feature fictional pandemics as a means of exploring social and political issues as well as human behavior.
Station Eleven (2014) – Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven , a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and one of BookBrowse's Best of the Year ...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
Read-Alikes
- Genres & Themes
If you liked Sea of Tranquility, try these:
Land of Milk and Honey
by C Pam Zhang
Published 2024
About this book
More by this author
The award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world
Toward Eternity
by Anton Hur
Negotiating the terrain of Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun and Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility , a brilliant, haunting speculative novel from a #1 New York Times bestselling translator that sets out to answer the question: What does it mean to be human in a world where technology is quickly catching up to biology?
Books with similar themes
.png "sea of tranquility sailboat vancouver")
BookBrowse Book Club
Members Recommend
The Fertile Earth by Ruthvika Rao
A love story set against India's political turmoil, where two young people defy social barriers.
Everything We Never Knew by Julianne Hough
A dazzling, heartwarming novel from Emmy winner Julianne Hough and Rule author Ellen Goodlett.
Solve this clue:
The A O M E
and be entered to win..
Win This Book
Follow the Stars Home by Diane C. McPhail
A reimagining of the intrepid woman who braved treacherous waters on the first steamboat voyage to conquer the Mississippi River.
Emily St. John Mandel
Buy the Book
Sea of tranquility.
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core. Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him. When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe. A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.
Praise for Sea of Tranquility
The New Yorker
Katy Waldman,
“ Sea of Tranquility is broader in scope than any of Mandel’s previous novels, voyaging profligately across lands and centuries…Destabilizing, extraordinary, and blood-boiling …Mandel weds a sharp, ambivalent self-accounting—the type of study that tends to wear the label ‘autofiction’—to a speculative epic. We are shown what two forms can offer each other, and exposed to the interrogating possibilities of science fiction.”
Wall Street Journal
Anna Mundow,
“‘Reality is things as they are,’ Wallace Stevens declared, and who could argue with that? Well, legions of philosophers and any number of novelists, among them Emily St. John Mandel, who, like an ingenious origami artist, seems determined with each new work to add yet another fold to our perception of what is real and one further twist to what we think of as time…Transcendent.”
Laird Hunt,
The New York Times
“ In Sea of Tranquility , Mandel offers one of her finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet, but it is her ability to convincingly inhabit the ordinary, and…project a sustaining acknowledgment of beauty, that sets the novel apart…Born of…empathy and hard-won understanding, beautifully built into language, for all of us who inhabit this ‘green-and-blue world’ and who one day might live well beyond.”
The Washington Post
Ron Charles,
“Mandel delivers…with an impish blend of wit and dread. The paradoxes of Gaspery’s adventure will be familiar to anyone who’s studied Jean Baudrillard or seen “Back to the Future.” But Mandel has the stylistic elegance and emotional sympathy to make this more than merely an undergraduate bull session. It’s a chance to… wrestle with the mind-blowing possibility that what is may be entirely different from what we see.”
The Economist
“Bold and exciting… Sea of Tranquility is Ms Mandel’s most ambitious novel yet (which is saying something). Inventive and…mind-bending…An illuminating study of survival and, in the words of one character, ‘what makes a world real.'”
This is my soul and the world unwinding, this is my heart in the still winter air. Finally whispering the same two words over and over: “Keep walking. Keep walking. Keep walking.”
— Station Eleven
Sea of Tranquility: A novel
By Emily St. John Mandel
BUY THE BOOK
Average rating: 7.33
714 RATINGS
These clubs recently read this book...
Books on Tap
Sav gals book club.
Community Reviews
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.
More books by this author
Book review: New sci-fi novel a profound meditation on what it means to live through a disaster
Sea of Tranquility is a profound meditation on what it means to live through a disaster.
You can save this article by registering for free here . Or sign-in if you have an account.
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Article content
Book review: new sci-fi novel a profound meditation on what it means to live through a disaster back to video.
Emily St. John Mandel | HarperCollins Canada (Toronto, 2022)
$29.99 | 272 pages
“Is this the promised end?”
In a nested story of epic tragedies, Emily St. John Mandel looks to the inevitable future.
Partway through Sea of Tranquility, the sixth novel from Mandel, a reporter asks the novelist Olive Llewllyn what she’s working on. “I’m writing this crazy sci-fi thing,” she responds. “It’s kind of deranged, actually.” “I suppose anything written this year would be,” the reporter answers.
Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.
- Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.
- Get exclusive access to the Vancouver Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.
- Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.
- Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.
- Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.
Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.
- Access articles from across Canada with one account.
- Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.
- Enjoy additional articles per month.
- Get email updates from your favourite authors.
Sign In or Create an Account
Like Mandel, Olive is best known for her novel about a “scientifically implausible pandemic”, Marienbad. As her story opens, she is on a tour to promote the book, which like Mandel’s Station Eleven is being adapted for the screen, when a real pandemic breaks out. Olive, speaking to the reporter, is now in lockdown, as Mandel was when she wrote Sea of Tranquility. The critical difference between the two is that Olive lives on a moon colony.
Sea of Tranquility is Mandel’s first foray into science fiction, split across four characters and time periods: Edwin St. John St. Andrew, exiled by his British parents to Canada in 1912; Mirella Kessler, a Ponzi scheme victim who appeared in Mandel’s last novel, The Glass Hotel, and whose story begins in 2020; Olive Llewllyn, in 2203; and Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a time traveller from 2401 whose investigation of a space-time anomaly links the characters. The title refers to the original moon-landing site, befitting a novel about four people who each find themselves adrift in strange, unfamiliar worlds.
It’s Mandel’s most sprawling and structurally complex novel to date, a departure from the non-linear narratives of her previous books. The stories are nested, proceeding chronologically from Edwin to Gaspery-Jacques, before receding back through time sequentially. Mandel’s clearest inspiration is David Mitchell, whose 2004 novel Cloud Atlas employs the same mirrored structure, and whose novels weave together to create what he calls an “Über-novel.” Sea of Tranquility confirms that Mandel has also been building a fictional multiverse, cross-pollinating her novels with shared characters and overlapping events.
It sounds dizzying, but Mandel is a precise and focused storyteller. She doesn’t over-explain her futuristic settings; her descriptions are evocative rather than technical. Of a flight to the moon, she writes: “A rapid ascent over the green-and-blue-world, then the world was blotted out all at once by clouds. The atmosphere turned thin and blue, the blue shaded into indigo and then — it was like slipping through the skin of a bubble — there was black space.” At fewer than 300 pages, the story moves quickly, propelled by Mandel’s understated prose toward a surprisingly tidy resolution.
A line from King Lear appears and reappears in the novel, resonating with each character’s world-shattering loss: “Is this the promised end?” But of course, it never is.
“As a species, we have a desire to believe that we’re living at the climax of the story,” Olive says. But in the end, none of us is the protagonist of human history; we are all just incidental characters in someone else’s story.
Sea of Tranquility is a profound meditation on what it means to live through a disaster, itself a reminder of the random events that shape our lives and how, through our choices, we imbue them with meaning.
Michelle Cyca is a writer and editor living in Vancouver.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.
Why you shouldn't swim at this Squamish lake
'we are being poisoned': tenants 'baffled' at vancouver's inaction over apartment tower's air quality problems, b.c. premier steps in twice to limit his government's policies on drugs, scammers use fake emails to steal $526k from owner of shaughnessy mansion.
B.C. politics: How John Rustad and Kevin Falcon put aside personal differences to reach a deal
This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here . By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy .
You've reached the 20 article limit.
You can manage saved articles in your account.
and save up to 100 articles!
By Emily St. John Mandel
Add Book To Favorites
Is this your library?
Sign up to save your library.
With an OverDrive account, you can save your favorite libraries for at-a-glance information about availability. Find out more about OverDrive accounts.
9780593321447
Emily St. John Mandel
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
05 April 2022
Find this title in Libby, the library reading app by OverDrive.
Search for a digital library with this title
Title found at these libraries:.
| Loading... |
🗓️ The Library will be closed on Labour Day (Monday, September 2) 🗓️
⚠️ Collections are moving in preparation for a seismic renovation in the Mezzanine level (non-fiction area). Visit wvml.ca/reno for updates. ⚠️
- New Books, DVDs, & More
- Ebooks & Audiobooks
- We Recommend
- World Languages
- Magazines & Newspapers
- Music & Video Online
- Suggest a Purchase
Featured Collections
- North Shore Authors Collection
- Health + Wellness Collection
- For Book Clubs
- Orchestra Collection
- West Vancouver Collection
- Permanent Art Collection
- Adult Summer Reading Club
- See All Events
- For Early Years
- Sound Artist in Residence
- Art Gallery
- English Language Learning
- Climate Future
- Honouring Reconciliation
- Shared Journeys
- Remembrance
- Program Proposal
- Databases & Online Resources
- Anti-racism
- Canadian News
- Coping with World Events
- Indigenous Peoples in Canada
- See All / Search Resources
- Online Courses
- Books & More
- Kids’ Programs
- For Educators
- Supporting West Vancouver Students & Educators
- Summer Reading Club
- Teen Reading Club
- Renovations
- Ask Us / FAQ
- Get a Library Card
- How to Borrow
- Interlibrary Loans
- Location & Hours
- Accessible Services
- Public Spaces & Room Rentals
- Recording Studio
- Digitization on Demand Station
- Exam Invigilation
- Donate Materials
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
An eclectic assortment of people encounter a time traveller who must resist the pull to change the past and the future. The cast includes a British exile on the West Coast of Canada in the early 1900s, the author of a bestselling novel about a fictional pandemic who embarks on a galaxy-spanning book tour during the outbreak of an actual pandemic, a resident of a moon colony almost 300 years in the future, and a lonely girl who films an old-growth forest and experiences a disruption in the recording.
- Last updated: September 8, 2023
Looking for reviews, author bios, and discussion questions to stimulate conversation? We’ve compiled these for you!
CBC Books: Sea of Tranquility
CBC preview of Sea of Tranquility
Esquire: Sea of Tranquility
Esquire interview with Mandel.
KnopfDoubleday questions: Sea of Tranquility
The questions, discussion topics, and other material
NPR: Sea of Tranquility
Radio programming covering Sea of Tranquility
Penguin Random House: Sea of Tranquility
Questions and topics for discussion from the publisher.
Relevant Reading: Sea of Tranquility
This Book Guide has online resources, a timeline, and discussion topics.
The British Columbia Review of Sea of Tranquility
“Mandel combines her shrewd observation of events in the present moment with a lively imagination”
The Guardian review of Sea of Tranquility
“This ingenious follow-up to Station Eleven finds intimate human interest in a future of moon colonies, pandemics and paranormal investigation”
VOX review Sea of Tranquility
“In Emily St. John Mandel’s new book Sea of Tranquility, the apocalypse is ongoing. So is life.”
Site Search
- Books & Media
- Events & Programs
- Research & Learn
- Recommended Resources by Topic
- Kids & Teens
- Using the Library
- Ask Us / Frequently Asked Questions
- Computers & Technology
West Vancouver Memorial Library
1950 Marine Drive West Vancouver, BC V7V 1J8
- 604.925.7400
- Contact Us
- Google Map
- Plans & Reports
- Library Board
- Careers & Volunteering
- History & Future
- Sustainability
- Friends of the Library
- WVML Foundation
- Ways to Give
- Donor Recognition
- Recent Projects and Sustained Funding
- Contact the Foundation
- In the News
- Media Releases
Stay in touch!
Past issues
Sign up for the What to Read Next newsletter
Privacy policy
Site by Affinity Bridge
© 2020 West Vancouver Memorial Library
- Commenting Policy
- Advanced Search
Dear Author
Romance, Historical, Contemporary, Paranormal, Young Adult, Book reviews, industry news, and commentary from a reader's point of view
JOINT REVIEW: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Janine: Jennie and I loved Station Eleven , Emily St. John Mandel’s breakout novel (Jennie even caught up on one or two earlier books by the author), so we reviewed her follow up, The Glass Hotel , together. When we heard she had a new book, Sea of Tranquility , we decided to write another joint review.
Sea of Tranquility , narrated in both third person and first person, is a speculative literary novel that follows four separate storylines. We begin in 1912 with eighteen-year-old Edwin St. John St. Andrew, whose aristocratic father exiled him from England for airing subversive views. After arriving in Halifax, Edwin is rudderless. He eventually attempts to join a farm in Saskatchewan, a business in Victoria, and then a logging venture on Vancouver Island with acquaintances. His heart isn’t in any of the three and he ends up lingering on Vancouver Island, in the tiny settlement of Caiette.
Jennie: I found Edwin the least relatable of the narrators. He seemed to be depressed, which I sympathized with, but he just wasn’t very compelling to me.
Janine: I’m with you on that. I still liked his sections, but more for the setting details (the 1910s are a period I love to read about).
One day Edwin wanders from the beach into a forest. An unfamiliar priest walks by and introduces himself as Father Roberts, filling in for Father Pike, who had to leave the island. After they part, Edwin passes under a maple tree and has a strange experience. For a moment he enters a dark, cavernous space like a train station. Violin music is playing, Edwin is aware of being surrounded by other people, and he hears a sound he doesn’t recognize. Then he’s back on the beach. He sees the new priest enter the church and follows him.
Jennie: When this experience, which is repeated by others and forms the heart of this book, happened I made an assumption about what was happening. What was strange was not that the assumption was (apparently) wrong, but that none of the characters in the book ever considered what seemed obvious to me. Instead, they go down a different (interesting!) track.
Janine: Yes, we talked about that. I didn’t assume that but I did wonder why other characters didn’t consider it a possibility.
Father Roberts asks Edwin how he is. Edwin confesses he saw something supernatural, then clams up. The priest has a strange accent and will only say that he’s from “Far away. Very far away.” No one can leave or arrive in Caiette except by boat, and Edwin hasn’t heard of a boat coming or going. Edwin walks out, then sees Father Pike walking toward him; Father Roberts obviously lied. Edwin glances back at the church, but it’s empty.
The story then shifts to 2020 and a stage performance by Paul Smith, a renowned violinist and experimental musician. Paul screens his sister Vincent’s home movies on stage as he performs. These were shot when Vincent (the protagonist of The Glass Hotel ) was a teen. In one clip, Vincent walks under a maple tree. For a moment there’s darkness, a cacophony of people in something like a train station, a snatch of violin music, and a whooshing sound that might be hydraulic pressure. Then the maple tree again. The camera tilts, suggesting that Vincent was frantically glancing around.
Mirella Kessler, now in her late thirties, shared a tight, supportive friendship with Vincent over a decade ago. Then the truth came out—Vincent’s husband Jonathan Alkaitis, a wealthy investor, had been running a Ponzi scheme. Mirella’s husband Faisal had invested his life savings with Jonathan’s investment firm and recommended it to family members. They and Faisal lost everything. Faisal, feeling ashamed and guilty, committed suicide. Vincent told Mirella she knew nothing about the fraud, but Mirella didn’t believe her and cut her off.
Recently Mirella has been having second thoughts. Could Vincent have been telling the truth after all? Mirella tries to track her down but discovers nothing, so she attends Paul’s performance. She intends to corner him and ask for further information.
Two men wait with her for Paul to emerge after the show. One introduces himself to Paul as Daniel McConaughey, a fan. The other, Gaspery Roberts, congratulates Paul on the wonderful performance. Daniel apologizes for using hand sanitizer before shaking hands—he’s concerned about “this thing in Wuhan.” Gaspery says the risk of transmission of Covid-19 through fomites is very low. Confused, Mirella sees Paul and Daniel also frown; none of them know what “fomites” or “Covid-19” are. “Oh, right,” Mirella catches Gaspery saying to himself, “it’s only January.”
Jennie: Without saying too much, I felt this bit was heavy-handed. When I knew more about Gaspery, I thought it was even more so. There are several examples in Sea of Tranquility of certain characters showing their hands in ways that don’t really make sense, but advance the plot. Those instances felt clumsy to me.
Janine: Agreed.
Mirella, Paul, Daniel and Gaspery go out for drinks. Daniel continues gushing. Gaspery asks Paul about the footage from the forest and Paul says Vincent filmed it near her hometown, Caiette, on Vancouver Island. Mirella asks Paul what happened to Vincent and learns that Vincent drowned after falling off a ship. She leaves abruptly and finds refuge in a park across the street. It’s nighttime and could be dangerous, but she’s too distraught to care. But Gaspery Roberts seems to cares; he finds her in the park. When Mirella asks who he is, he says that he’s a kind of investigator.
Gaspery seems familiar but Mirella can’t place him. He asks if Vincent ever talked about the time she filmed the strange video but Mirella can offer him no information. Then she recognizes him. When she was nine and lived in Ohio, she and her sister walked by an overpass and heard a gunshot. A gunman slumped against the wall; two bodies lay nearby and a fourth man ran away. The police came and arrested the shooter. Gaspery looks just like him.
Most chilling, then and now, is that though she’d never met him before, the gunman said her name. As soon as she remembers Gaspery, Mirella flees the park. But later that night, she realizes the arrested man couldn’t have been him. It happened thirty years ago, and Gaspery looks no older than that man.
Jennie: Dun-dun-DUN! (I kid; I actually liked the interaction between Mirella and Gaspery and was interested in the resolution to that mystery.)
Janine: We then move to 2203. Olive Llewellyn is the author of a bestselling post-apocalyptic pandemic novel, Marienbad . She lives on a moon colony but is touring earth to promote a new book. Olive’s husband and young daughter are at home and Olive really misses them, but she feels driven to continue the exhausting tour. Even when a new pandemic emerges, Olive stays.
There is a section with a fourth main character that takes place after Olive’s and is set further in the future, but I don’t want to say much about it. After that we catch up with all four characters again.
My feelings about this book are mostly good, but they were mixed about Olive’s sections. I think Mandel wanted to convey that book tours are exhausting and repetitive, but the repetitiveness got boring and I also became frustrated with Olive. Her suffering seemed needless and her priorities were clearly wrong.
Jennie : In a way it felt realistic to me, though? We so often cling to familiar routines and obligations even when evidence mounts that what we are doing isn’t important and there are clearly bigger things to worry about. (I’ve come to believe that the metaphor of the frog in water that comes to a boil can be applied to SO many situations in life. At least my life.)
Janine: You’re right but I was still frustrated with her. Especially since she was endangering her life and (potentially) the lives of her husband and daughter.
Olive’s storyline, thoughts and dialogue also read like a way for Emily St. John Mandel to speak to her experiences with Station Eleven , which Olive’s novel Marienbad resembles. In our recent discussion of anachronisms, you said you didn’t want to think about the author while you were reading. With Olive, I felt Mandel was forcing me to.
Jennie: You know, this didn’t occur to me, but when you mention it, it is obvious. I don’t know why I didn’t see Olive as a stand-in for Mandel.
Janine: Well, she lives on the moon in the twenty-third century, so I can see why you wouldn’t. I don’t see her as a stand-in but I do feel her storyline was designed to facilitate meta commentary.
I am not usually a fan self-referencing in books because it can make me preoccupied with things outside the concerns of the book. It’s clear some things here are drawn from book tour experience and I feel Mandel wants readers to recognize that, but for me that brings up thoughts about her private life. When I read a book, I don’t want to be distracted by extraneous questions like whether Mandel plays pretend games with her child, as Olive does, or if her marriage is really that loving.
Also, Olive’s confrontations with Marienbad ’s readers in the book tour Q and A’s were over things I’ve heard Station Eleven readers complain about, like the anticlimactic nature of the death of a character named the Prophet, and the main characters not meeting by the end of the book. I loved these aspects of Station Eleven but I still didn’t want to see Mandel using page space in Sea of Tranquility to complain about readers who didn’t. Especially since some of them will have spent their money and time on Sea of Tranquility , only to read defensiveness leveled at them (to be fair, this was mitigated a bit by the way Olive gave consideration to their questions).
Jennie: I actually thought Olive had a bit of an attitude with some of the interviewers, but I chalked it up to her general lethargy/sense of dislocation/homesickness.
Janine: Yes, I saw that as the case as well. Despite my mixed feelings about the meta commentary, I think that maybe it was necessary. Without it, Sea of Tranquility could have been a retread of many other science fiction novels.
The rest of the book held my attention pretty well, better than The Glass Hotel did. Though I think Vincent in The Glass Hotel was a better-developed character than any of Sea of Tranquility ’s characters, I felt that Sea of Tranquility was the better book. When we reviewed The Glass Hotel you pointed out that the Ponzi scheme storyline didn’t gel that well with Vincent’s personal story. I agreed with that, and I think Sea of Tranquility is more cohesive, giving it a stronger narrative and better pacing. It’s also less monotone. The four storylines are woven together more tightly and also ordered well. The different perspectives, time periods and the maple tree mystery that pulled them in together each had a different but complementary feel.
Jennie: I absolutely agree. The themes felt unified (sometimes to a fault; there were a couple of times I felt that Mandel was hitting me over the head with one of her points).
Janine: I had a question with regard to Gaspery.
Spoiler : Show
Why did his employers hire him? He didn’t seem qualified.
Jennie: My take on that was that 1) Gaspery actually did, theoretically, have some of the skills necessary for the job; he was good at observation, as his work at the hotel had shown (though, what was THAT job about?); 2) as Talia said, the Institute was a bureaucracy – I extrapolated from that though they did important work, they weren’t necessarily as competent at it as it might originally seem and 3) maybe they were hard up? It didn’t seem like it was a very popular organization among the denizens of the colony.
Janine: All true; it was even said there was a lot of attrition. But I think Gaspery was unsuited enough even so that it would have made more sense to raise salaries instead.
Janine: There were science fiction concepts here that felt not particularly original (such as a theory about the anomaly), but the way everything came together at the end was satisfying. I guessed at a couple of the big twists well ahead of time but not the ultimate one.
Jennie: I don’t know that I guessed any of the twists – I had a couple of ideas percolating in my brain but hadn’t put things together entirely.
Janine: My best reasons for enjoying the book involve spoilers.
Spoiler (BIG): Show
There was one character I consider central. Despite not being smart, wealthy, or attractive, this person proved heroic. That someone can be heroic without any of these attributes is, of course, true, but it’s not that common in my reading, so it felt fresh and surprising. I felt the author was gently making this point—that you don’t have to be gifted to make a difference, you only have to be brave and kind. That was something I really liked.
Jennie: I really loved the end of the book as well, and the final twist. And I loved that character.
Janine: I liked all of the four significant characters, though I noticed a few plot holes too spoilery to mention. On the whole, I felt that Sea of Tranquility went beyond solid to quite good. B+.
Jennie: In spite of the fact that I feel like I keep thinking of new plot holes (maybe hard to avoid with some of the themes of the book?), I liked Sea of Tranquility enough to give it a B+.
Amazon BN Kobo Book Depository Google
Share this:
Janine Ballard loves well-paced, character-driven novels in romance, fantasy, YA, and the occasional outlier genre. Examples include novels by Ilona Andrews, Mary Balogh, Aster Glenn Gray, Helen Hoang, Piper Huguley, Lisa Kleypas, Jeannie Lin, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Naomi Novik, Nalini Singh, and Megan Whalen Turner. Janine also writes fiction. Her critique partners are Sherry Thomas and Meredith Duran. Her erotic short story, “Kiss of Life,” appears in the Berkley anthology AGONY/ECSTASY under the pen name Lily Daniels. You can email Janine at janineballard at gmail dot com or find her on Twitter @janine_ballard.
@Janine and @Jennie, I have yet to read anything by this author, but this does sound intriguing.
(Was this perchance posted previously? I feel a sense of déjà vu.)
@ Kareni : As good as this one is, if you only read one of her books, I recommend Station Eleven (I have a review here: https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/overall-a-reviews/a-minus-reviews/review-station-eleven-by-emily-st-john-mandel/ ). It is a lovely and ultimately hopeful book. In case it’s a concern, I didn’t find as dark as one might think a postapocalyptic novel would be.
I accidentally posted this review for a minute l when I was editing it in the back end. I immediately took it offline but if you have DA on your RSS feed you may have seen it in your inbox then. The book just came out yesterday so it’s still quite timely now.
@Janine, thank you!
I just started it…about 60 pages in…and I first was getting a bit frustrated from all of the characters and their ‘dark and depressed’ backgrounds… but I can see it’s not trying to throw a pity party or anything…while I don’t think this is going to reach the heights of Cloud Atlas…and I can see that’s what the author may be trying here… I feel like it’s still going to have a nice conclusion to bring it all together. Also honestly…the whole pandemic/post apocalyptic thing I find interesting, but I hope it’s expanded on.
@ steve : Let me know what you think when you finish. I would love to hear your thoughts. It gets a lot better IMO.
Enjoyed both books but am a bit confused about what really happened to Jonathan Alkaitis
Glass Hotel spelled out one outcome while SEA of TRANQUILITY referenced an outcome
**SPOILER ALERT** that was only ever his prison fantasy or “counter“ life.
Am I missing something? Do we just pick one ?
@ Jivan : I interpreted it this way: in The Glass Hotel there was a reference to multiverses / multi-realities. Remember Vincent thinks how it’s possible that in another reality the Georgia Flu decimated the population, while in her reality it wasn’t such a big thing. I don’t know if you’ve read Station Eleven, but the pandemic in Station Eleven is the Georgia Flu. There are also other examples of this—Leon and Miranda are characters in Station Eleven as well as in The Glass Hotel, but their lives (Miranda’s especially) unfold differently in the two books. There is yet more evidence of this in Sea of Tranquility (Vincent is in both books, but doesn’t encounter or record the anomaly in The Glass Hotel, it seems).
The theme of multiple realities ties in with the anomaly theory in Sea of Tranquility. The two fates of Alkaitis confirm it. In one reality Alkaitis escaped, and in the other he went to prison.
Each of these books—Station Eleven, The Glass Hotel, and Sea of Tranquility—takes place in a different reality but one with some similarities to the other two. They make up a kind of triptych. They can be read alone but it is best to read all three in publication order to get the full effect.
@Janine Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Now I see. It’s clear. A multiverse… parallel realities but each unique. I am most appreciative of this enlightenment which will allow me to carry on with my day ( I was really in a mental quandary… hate it when that happens (LOL)
Perhaps my confusion was fed by having read SEA of Tranquility first. I had loved Station Eleven on HBO and so when I saw an ad for SEA of Tranquility “by the author of Station Eleven” I grabbed it and was nearly done when I read several reviews that said “READ GLASS HOTEL FIRST. “
I see now that I really must read STATION ELEVEN.
Allow me to add that IMHO, the treatment afforded the scenes describing Vincent’s “transition” were some of the most beautifully poignant I’ve ever read. And how fitting that she joins her mother.
@ Jivan : Ooh, I didn’t pick up on that. How does she join her mother? There are so many little Easter eggs in these books, it’s hard to pick up on everything.
Station Eleven is her best book (of the ones I’ve read) IMO. It’s not the same as the TV show, but of course thee are similarities. I would say I liked them in this order:
1. Station Eleven 2. Sea of Tranquility 3. The Ghost Hotel
(The reading order though is Station Eleven first, then Ghost Hotel, then Sea of Tranquility.)
You can find our reviews of her other books here: https://dearauthor.com/?s=Mandel
My review of Station Eleven is one of the ones I’m proudest of in my whole history of writing for DA FWIW (off the top of my head only my review of Milkman by Anna Burns is another I like that much, LOL.)
@Janine Oh thanks for the link and the suggested book order.
I’ll be sure to read your most cherished review next.
I loved the way her spirit-body visited Paul and how when she visited Jonathan she also discerned the investors who were still haunting his existence.
Here’s the passage that I feel MUST BE referencing her mother. Check it out and tell me what you think .
“…so I move away from the desert and away from Paul, all the way to Caiette. I’m on the beach, not far from the pier where the mail boat comes in, and my mother is here. She’s sitting some distance away, on a driftwood log, hands folded on her lap, with an air of waiting calmly for an appointment. Her hair is still braided, she’s still thirty-six years old, still in the red cardigan she was wearing the day she disappeared. It was an accident, of course it was, she would never have left me on purpose. She has waited so long for me. She was always here. This was always home. She’s gazing at the ocean, at the waves on the shore, and she looks up in amazement when I say her name.“
@ jivan : Thank you for pointing that out. I went back and reread the whole last chapter and it’s so beautiful. I think the first time I read it I thought it was ambiguous—that Vincent might be hallucinating all this as she was dying, because she kept mentioning being in the ocean. But this time I think it truly is the afterlife, and that ending is just lovely.
Actually I heard the final chapter via audiobook prior to reading it and must credit gold stars to actress Dylan Moore who delivered memorable narration throughout. Indeed, a beautiful final chapter. One befitting a lead character that Mandel probably loves as much as we fans do. /__/
Hmm, I’ll have to try something by Dylan Moore, then. I didn’t love Vincent as much as you did, but I thought she was a very fully developed character. My favorite Mandel character is Kirsten from Station Eleven.
Ahhhh yes! The little orphan who grew up to be a brave centurion and most capable with knives!
If you have a digital copy of Station Eleven you might find it of interest that the word ELEVEN appears over 60 times!
@Janine Any idea if the last 2 books will also make their way to HBO [or a movie theatre near us ] in a future timeline?
@ Jivan : No, no idea.
Just found this— not green lit yet so time will tell.,,
April, 2022 The two Station Eleven followup series are in development at HBO Max. Paramount TV Studios, which is behind Station Eleven, has optioned The Glass Hotel and Sea of Tranquility and is producing the potential two new series, which are not envisioned as sequels to Station Eleven.
I stumbled on this book and listened to the audio version, with its four different narrators. I was not familiar with the author. Your review was helpful in figuring out some of the background that felt a little sketchy while listening to it–one drawback to audio books is that it’s harder to go back a few chapters and dive back into something that becomes evident later. This book had many such situations. This review helped a lot. Thanks.
@ Matthew Silverman : You’re welcome!
FTC Disclaimer
We do not purchase all the books we review here. Some we receive from the authors, some we receive from the publisher, and some we receive through a third party service like Net Galley . Some books we purchase ourselves. Login
Discover more from Dear Author
Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.
Type your email…
Continue reading
Advertisement
Supported by
A Dazzling New Foray into Speculative Fiction From Emily St. John Mandel
In “Station Eleven,” she explored fallout from a pandemic. Now, in “Sea of Tranquility,” Mandel takes up existential questions of time and being.
- Share full article
By Laird Hunt
SEA OF TRANQUILITY by Emily St. John Mandel
Let’s begin with a moment of beauty, one of many in Emily St. John Mandel’s time-leaping sixth novel, “Sea of Tranquility.” It comes in the second half of the book, which is set in part in Earth’s far-off future, as a woman takes a commercial flight back to her home on the moon:
“What it was like to leave Earth: a rapid ascent over the green-and-blue world, then the world was blotted out all at once by clouds. The atmosphere turned thin and blue, the blue shaded into indigo, and then — it was like slipping through the skin of a bubble — there was black space.”
That feeling of something lovely glimpsed and lost is everywhere in these pages — which makes sense considering that the exiles, grieving friends, lonely authors and lonelier time travelers Mandel sets in motion in this luminous follow-up to “ Station Eleven” and “ The Glass Hotel ” are all trying, with varying degrees of success, to catch hold of what keeps eluding them. And whether that’s something they’ve had and lost, or something they want but can’t quite name, all feel adrift on the boundless seas of longing.
The novel opens in 1912, with a solo journey from England to Canada, undertaken after an act of modest rebellion by Edwin St. John St. Andrew, scion of an aristocratic family, results in his expulsion from home. The feckless young man’s melancholy ramble comes abruptly to an end following an inexplicable vision in a Vancouver forest and a mysterious encounter with a man named Gaspery Roberts. Then a new section begins, this one set more than a century in the future, with a woman named Mirella Kessler who has just learned that her estranged friend Vincent is dead. This section, too, refers to a vision in a forest and features the same Gaspery Roberts. We eventually turn to a third section, set almost two more centuries later, featuring yet another new character, but both the vision and Roberts are there as well.
In this way, the first 100 pages of the novel introduce a group of people, each wracked by loneliness or sadness or purposelessness, but all of whom have, in some way, experienced “a flash of darkness, like sudden blindness or an eclipse,” “an impression of being in some vast interior,” “notes of violin music,” “then an incomprehensible sound.” And though along the way we’ve met intriguing characters like Mirella and Vincent, who some will recognize from “The Glass Hotel,” and have spent time with a 23rd-century writer, Olive Llewellyn, who is unquestionably a stand-in for Mandel herself (Olive has become tremendously famous in part for having written a book about the aftermath of a fictional flu pandemic), this is where, as they say, things get interesting. Because this is where the novel catches up to the enigmatic Roberts.
Roberts grew up on the moon in the late 24th century. When the story turns, finally, to him, it’s the dawn of the 25th, and our mystery man is at loose ends, working as a house detective at the Grand Luna Hotel. Though relocated to the high-functioning Colony One, the nostalgia-prone Roberts is haunted by his upbringing in the relatively derelict Colony Two, a.k.a. the Night City, “the place where the sky was always black,” because the failure of the protective dome’s artificial lighting system was judged too expensive to fix. His work at the hotel, where he is paid just to be present and pay attention to what happens around him, would seem like dubious preparation for any other job, but he soon takes up a new position in his brilliant sister Zoey’s shop, a most curious entity called the Time Institute. At this point, there have already been hints about where and when his unusual new job will take him, but the why of his journey — an investigation into the anomalous vision, which may have alarming implications about the nature of reality — has yet to be unfurled.
Mandel has worked adroitly with multiple timelines in her previous books, leaping back and forth between the past, present and future to explore killer viruses and Madoff-inspired Ponzi schemes. Her characters, too, have frequently felt temporally discombobulated. In “The Glass Hotel,” for example, a key player, the above-mentioned Vincent, says, “I am aware of a border but I can’t tell which side I’m on, and it seems I can move between memories like walking from one room to the next.” She also says, more plainly, “I am out of time.”
In ‘Sea of Tranquility,’ Mandel offers one of her finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet.
In “Sea of Tranquility,” Mandell makes that metaphor — feeling out of sync — quite literal and uses a machine to send Roberts and others out on missions across time. The 20th, 21st, 23rd and 25th centuries are all visited here with plenty of now-familiar, pop-culture concern about temporal health expressed along the way.
If this were a different sort of novel, it might be reasonable to fret that stories like Ray Bradbury’s classic “A Sound of Thunder,” novels like Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” television shows like “Dr. Who,” certain episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” or even Disney’s recent madcap “Loki,” had done time travel stories better, or at least earlier, and in most cases with more elaborately imagined tech. But Mandel is interested in something other than limning the highs and lows of timeline trotting and figuring out what to do — it’s never good, is it? — when someone like Roberts steps off the path, as he eventually does, to try to help someone in the past. Indeed, though the speculative elements in “Sea of Tranquility” (which was written during the Covid-19 pandemic and discusses the crushing impact of pandemics more broadly) are set in service of an attempt to make some sense of huge societal and existential crises and pose good old questions like what does it mean to be alive, Mandel’s novel has more in common with tech-minimized sci-fi outings like Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go.”
In “Sea of Tranquility,” Mandel offers one of her finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet, but it is her ability to convincingly inhabit the ordinary, and her ability to project a sustaining acknowledgment of beauty, that sets the novel apart. As in Ishiguro, this is not born of some cheap, made-for-television, faux-emotional gimmick or mechanism, but of empathy and hard-won understanding, beautifully built into language, for all of us who inhabit this “green-and-blue world” and who one day might live well beyond.
It is that aspect of “Sea of Tranquility,” Mandel’s finely rendered, characteristically understated descriptions of the old-growth forests her characters walk through, the domed moon colonies some of them call home, the robot-tended fields they gaze over or the whooshing airship liftoff sound they hear even in their dreams, that will, for this reader at least, linger longest. One can only hope that the “Far Colonies” Mandel evokes but never really explores in “Sea of Tranquility” will figure, along with Gaspery Roberts or one or two of his fellows, in a future work.
Laird Hunt’s most recent novel, “Zorrie,” was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for fiction.
SEA OF TRANQUILITY By Emily St. John Mandel 255 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $25.
Explore More in Books
Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..
100 Best Books of the 21st Century: As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
The Reigning Couple in Russian Literature : For Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, translating together extended naturally from their relationship as husband and wife. Now, it is their life’s work.
Book Review Quiz Bowl : Can you guess these novels that originally got bad Times reviews?
Rapping About Books and Grammar : Jacob Mitchell has become a wildly popular performer whose rhymes have made reading and grammar all the rage among young people across Britain.
The Book Review Podcast: Each week, top authors and critics talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .
| | |
|
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Emily St. John Mandel. A novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space. Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society ...
From Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony of the moon three hundred years later. The Sunday Times bestseller, Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel is a story of parallel worlds and possibilities that plays with the very line along which time should run. 'So wise, so graceful, so rich' - Naomi Alderman, author of The Power 'Ingenious'...
The year is 1912, and eighteen-year-old Edwin St. John St. Andrew is making a long journey west across the Atlantic. Disinherited by his aristocratic English family on the basis of his radical ...
Summary. In 1912, Edwin St. John St. Andrew, a young man from a noble English family, sparks a scandal by publicly opposing the British Raj. As a consequence, his father banishes him to Canada. Edwin meanders from Halifax to Victoria, British Columbia, but due to its stark resemblance to English high society, he leaves for Caiette, a remote ...
About Sea of Tranquility. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.
Clearly drawn from real life, Sea of Tranquility never feels too self-indulgent. Mandel demonstrates yet again her talent for balancing an ensemble cast, with even the briefest of interludes making each character sympathetic and memorable, like strangers encountered at a party even if never seen again. This is especially impressive considering ...
Like The Glass Hotel and Station Eleven, Sea of Tranquility is concerned with deep philosophical questions. The author considers the nature of reality, time and memory, the significance of art in perilous times, and what we owe one another as fellow human beings... continued. (668 words) This review is available to non-members for a limited time.
"Sea of Tranquility is broader in scope than any of Mandel's previous novels, voyaging profligately across lands and centuries…Destabilizing, extraordinary, and blood-boiling …Mandel weds a sharp, ambivalent self-accounting—the type of study that tends to wear the label 'autofiction'—to a speculative epic.
Vancouver Island and The Glass Hotel. The book begins on Vancouver Island and the year is 1912, where we meet Edwin St. Andrew, an immigrant from England. ... Book review - Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel. 255 pages hardcover Published May 5, 2022 by Knopf. Amazon UK Amazon US. Sea of Tranquility Book Club Questions - Spoilers ahead.
Sea of Tranquility: A novel. NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and ...
Sea of Tranquility is a 2022 novel by the Canadian writer Emily St. John Mandel.It is Mandel's sixth novel and a work of speculative fiction. [1] [2]Written during the COVID-19 pandemic, [2] the novel considers "what constitutes reality, how time flows, and what memory is in the context of perception" [3] by pondering the simulation hypothesis and time travel.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times ...
Sea of Tranquility is Mandel's first foray into science fiction, split across four characters and time periods: Edwin St. John St. Andrew, exiled by his British parents to Canada in 1912 ...
From Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony of the moon three hundred years later, the Sunday Times bestseller, Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel is a story of parallel worlds and possibilities that plays with the very line along which time should run. 'So wise, so graceful, so rich' - Naomi Alderman, author of The Power'Ingenious' - GuardianLives separated by time and space have ...
"Sea of Tranquility is broader in scope than any of Mandel's previous novels, voyaging profligately across lands and centuries…Destabilizing, extraordinary, and blood-boiling…Mandel weds a sharp, ambivalent self-accounting—the type of study that tends to wear the label 'autofiction'—to a speculative epic. We are shown what two ...
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space. One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads
In Emily St. John Mandel's new book 'Sea of Tranquility,' our humanity follows us wherever we go — even to the year 2401 ... Vancouver Island's Mandel connects her previous two books ...
An eclectic assortment of people encounter a time traveller who must resist the pull to change the past and the future. The cast includes a British exile on the West Coast of Canada in the early 1900s, the author of a bestselling novel about a fictional pandemic who embarks on a galaxy-spanning book tour during the outbreak of an actual pandemic, a resident of a moon colony almost 300 years in ...
The main themes in Sea of Tranquility are reality and simulations; causality, culpability, and consequences; and pandemics, isolation, and fear. Reality and simulations: Gaspery searches for ...
Sea of Tranquility, narrated in both third person and first person, is a speculative literary novel that follows four separate storylines. We begin in 1912 with eighteen-year-old Edwin St. John St. Andrew, whose aristocratic father exiled him from England for airing subversive views. After arriving in Halifax, Edwin is rudderless.
It is that aspect of "Sea of Tranquility," Mandel's finely rendered, characteristically understated descriptions of the old-growth forests her characters walk through, the domed moon ...
I got enjoyment from about half of it, and it might float your boat. Track Listing 1. WTF Was That?! (1:47) 2. Toy Soldiers (3:50) 3. Flim-Flam Man (5:21) 4. Side Hustle (2:36) 5. Lousy Smarch Weather (4:24) ... 2004 Sea Of Tranquility: For information regarding where to send CD promos and advertising, please see our FAQ page. If you have ...
Nestled in West Vancouver's coveted Caulfeild neighborhood, Stuart Howard's design unfolds on a sprawling, private forested lot. The home resonates with Sea Ranch's ecological ethos, flaunting natural wood finishes that harmonize exquisitely with its lush green surroundings. ... A paragon of modernism and tranquility, Sea Ranch House is ...