I’m terrible at staying current on TV or movies. Unless it’s Tolkien or Marvel related, there’s a good chance it will take me a year or more to sit down and actually watch it—even when that it is an adaptation of a novel I adore, like Station Eleven.
If you’re unaware, Station Eleven takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where 99% of the human population has been killed by a virulent flu pandemic. The story follows a group of Shakespearean actors who travel an annual circuit in northern Michigan performing for communities under the mantra, “Survival is insufficient.”
Because the last few weeks have felt like Station Eleven in my home (we’ve been battling a deluge of daycare germs, hence the very late newsletter), I ended up having a fair amount of sick-filled down time to get through the show.
And I’m so glad I did because it’s spectacular.
Not only does it capture the heart of the novel, but it powerfully portrays humanity’s triumphs and ever-present fragility, as well as our need for beauty. I honestly can’t decide which version I like more—the book or the television series.
At the heart of the story is a graphic novel called Station Eleven the main characters unknowingly have in common with one another. And its storyline becomes a guiding beacon for the way they view the world thereafter.
In one particular scene, Kirsten, who was eight years old when the pandemic struck and who’s now in her late twenties, reveals to another character their connection to Station Eleven and how it met her as everything around her fell apart. She says:
When I read it, I didn’t care that the world was ending because it was the world.
Kirsten never had the chance to say goodbye to anyone she loved. When the virus arrived in her orbit, she was performing in a stage production of King Lear and couldn’t reach her parents to pick her up. Fortunately, a man in the audience offered to walk her home and ended up taking care of her for the next year as the world fell to ruin.
But Station Eleven became her world. It was her tether to the past, a reminder of what once was, as well as her hope for the future, a way of facing loss and heartbreak with a taste of beauty. It became her vocabulary for life.
The show is full of powerful moments and lines, but this one stood out to me more than most because it underscored what I love to write about in this newsletter—the power of stories to shape us for the better.
Stories meet us wherever we are. They gather up our emotions, transport us into foreign surroundings, and bring us home with souvenirs to face the day anew. If needed, they can become our world.
And it’s a good thing, because like the mantra of Station Eleven, survival is insufficient. We need more than food, water, and shelter. We need beauty and connection. We need an inner nourishment that story is perfectly suited to satiate.
Thanks for reading, as always, and if you take away anything from this month’s edition of The Foreword, it should be to go watch and/or read Station Eleven.
January/February Reads
Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo—Bardugo’s follow up to Ninth House doesn’t disappoint. Character development takes a side role to the plot, but Yale and its secret societies remain as creepy as ever.
The Appeal by Janice Hallet—I. Loved. This. Book. As the reader, you’re introduced to a murder mystery through the perspective of two young lawyers studying a collection of emails and text messages for an upcoming trial. It is so cleverly written, I could not put it down and ended up reading it in two days.
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor—I’ve seen some reviewers describe Age of Vice as The Godfather of India, and it’s hard to argue with that assessment. The novel begins with a tragic car crash and spends the remainder of its focus telling various character stories that led up to that moment. It’s violent, graphic, and the first installment of a trilogy with plenty of promise to come.
Ghost Music by An Yu—Ghost Music’s main character is a former concert pianist in a struggling marriage who begins receiving shipments of mushrooms from a famed pianist who disappeared ten years prior. I really enjoyed this strange, mysterious little book that explores finding new beginnings in the wake of grief.
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South by Tucker Carrington and Radley Balko—If you’re a fan of true crime and investigative journalism, you’ll want to add this one to your list. It’s a deep dive into the coroner system in the US with an emphasis on how it has functioned in Mississippi to enrich privatized grifters and falsely imprison members of the Black community. It’s a sobering read about the shortcomings of our legal system, the pressures and limitations of law enforcement, and the need for reform.
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai—There’s a lot going on in this story about a successful podcaster who returns to teach a course at her high-school boarding school where her roommate was murdered. I expected a podcast-esque novel investigating the murder and instead got a #MeToo story, similar to My Dark Vanessa. It’s a book that really wants to say something. Overall, I enjoyed it, but it felt bloated at times.
Most Anticipated of February and March
Black Dove by Colin McAdam—Oliver is a twelve-year-old boy whose mother has died, whose father is a novelist, and who is bullied at school. He and his father process their grief through stories, their fixation being that of the Black Dove, a rare flower that offers life-sustaining powers. I’m in the middle of this one right now and it is . . . wild.
Users by Colin Winnette—A virtual reality company creates a new product called The Ghost Lover, in which “a user’s simulated life is almost identical to their reality, except they’re haunted by the ghost of an ex-lover.” What could go wrong?
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton—A gardening collective and an American billionaire face off over rights to an abandoned New Zealand farm in a story that pits contrasting views of survival against one another.
Happily by Sabrina Orah Mark—I’m a sucker for essay collections, and this one, described as a “memoir-in-essays on fairy tales and their surprising relevance to modern life, from a Jewish woman raising Black children in the American South,” sounds fascinating.
Lone Women by Victor LaValle—Following up his unsettling novel The Changeling, LaValle drops readers in the early twentieth century American West with a woman named Adelaide. Working to create a home out of free land she’s received from the government, she drags a steamer trunk with her wherever she goes that, when unlocked, tends to accompany the disappearance of whoever’s around Adelaide. I’m all the way in on this one.
Reading Roundup
My fall TBR list just got rearranged as two of my favorite authors, Zadie Smith and Jesmyn Ward, have new novels releasing this fall.
Speaking of Zadie Smith, earlier this year she reviewed the film Tár, and while I admire her fiction, she’s at her best in essay-length criticism.
The Millions released the first edition of their always reliable Most Anticipated list for 2023.
I stumbled upon this 2015 article on “The Virtues of Difficult Fiction” via a Twitter thread and found it well worth the time.
And if you want to get your hands on some truly difficult fiction, check out Cain’s Jawbone, a 100-page novel assembled out of order. It’s your job to piece it together correctly in order to solve its murderous plot. Only four people have correctly “read” the book since it published in 1930.
No one really loves Twitter—we just love its bright spots. One of my favorites has been Book Twitter. The platform has provided unparalleled access to creators, publishers, authors, and so on. But many are wondering if that access is now in jeopardy? And if it is, where do we turn next?
Afterword
March Madness has arrived, which means that in addition to filling out your NCAA bracket, you also need to make your picks in this year’s Tournament of Books. Every year, this event is a blast to watch as critics and readers alike face off hand-selected novels from the previous year against one another. The 2023 bracket includes titles from Emily St. John Mandel, Gabrielle Zevin, Brendan Slocumb, and more. You’re sure to find at least one book to root for.