Emily St. John Mandel's 'Exit Party': An Excerpt — SkimNews
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- Emily St. John Mandel's novel 'Exit Party' is the October read for the New Scientist Book Club, published by Picador.
- The extract is set in spring 2031 in Los Angeles, described as 'the first spring after the collapse of the United States' following a coup d'état.
- Several US states seceded within a week of the coup, with war breaking out within the month before subsiding into what the text calls an 'uneasy aftermath.'
- Ari, the protagonist, is released from prison after nearly two decades and walks the city the same week international peacekeeping troops withdraw from Los Angeles.
- Gloria, Ari's Echo Park roommate and a Tennessee militia refugee, is introduced fixating on what the city was like a year earlier, as a curfew lifts and a party beckons.
- The passage opens with jacaranda trees blooming alongside the troops' departure, framing the season as 'a delirious kind of hope' despite the city being 'one terrorist attack away from disaster.'
Why it matters: Featured as the October New Scientist Book Club pick, the 'Exit Party' extract gives readers a first look at Mandel's novel set in a post-coup America where peacekeeping troops have just left Los Angeles and curfew has lifted, with the city re-emerging into an uneasy spring.
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