In Which a Librarian asks a Talented Author a Small Number of Questions:
I fell in love with Emily St. John Mandel's work back in 2018. Her fourth novel: Station Eleven was recommended to me, and I devoured it while on vacation. Since then, I have admired her work in which she weaves together multiple characters in such a way that is mesmerizing. Her latest novel: Sea of Tranquility is personally one of my favorite novels that I have finished in 2023. With the paperback due out later this month, I figured why not ask her a few questions. Check out more of Emily St. John Mandel's work on her website.
If you were a dewey number, what would you consider yourself to be?
I think I'd like to park somewhere in the 700s (Arts & Recreation.) 800 is literature, but screenwriting is really important to me these days and I don't have enough recreation in my life.
Do you have another book in the works? If so, can you give us any clues, or is it top secret?
I do have another book in the works! But I'm not even done with the first draft, so there's a very long way to go. I have no idea how it ends, but I can tell you that the main protagonist is the villain from my second novel, The Singer's Gun.
You mentioned that you never had any formal writing experience, what brought you to becoming a writer?
I was homeschooled as a kid, and for a while when I was eight or nine I had to write something every day as part of the curriculum. That requirement didn't last long, but it had a lasting impact on me. When I was a little older—say, eleven or twelve—I started writing an epic fantasy novel on scrap paper that I'm certain was unreadable, but I have nice memories of it.
I trained pretty intensively in ballet and then contemporary dance; that was going to be my career, and writing was just a hobby until I decided when I was twenty-one that I didn't want to be a dancer anymore. I had a mountain of student loan debt from the dance conservatory I'd attended, so it never occurred to me to go back to college. I was trying to figure out what to do with my life, and decided to see if I could write a novel, so I started working on a project that was eventually published as my first novel, Last Night in Montreal.
What books are on your TBR-(To Be Read pile)
I'm doing a deep dive into WW2-era Paris. The two books I'm taking with me on a plane tomorrow are Ronald C. Rosbottom's When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944, and Alan Riding's And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris.