Emily St John Mandel, acclaimed author known for blending speculative fiction with sharp social observation, has released her seventh novel, *Exit Party*, set in a near-future Los Angeles marked by unsettling phenomena such as mysterious doppelgangers and sudden disappearances. The book, published in 2026, explores two divergent futures for America: one fractured by civil war, the other governed by an authoritarian surveillance state.

Mandel’s work often reflects a deep engagement with themes of alternate realities and the fragility of shared truths. She has described the erosion of consensual reality as a central challenge facing Western democracies, observing that "when half the electorate disagrees on basic reality" — for example, disputed election outcomes or the legitimacy of the COVID-19 pandemic — it becomes difficult to envision reconciliation or consensus.

This preoccupation with parallel lives and “counter-lives” is a recurring motif throughout Mandel’s career. Raised on a small island in British Columbia and initially trained as a dancer, Mandel only began formal education in her mid-teens. She balanced writing with various jobs until her third novel, *Station Eleven*, gained international success. The 2014 work about a post-pandemic world saw a resurgence in readership during the COVID-19 crisis, drawing praise for its eerily prescient themes. The novel has sold over 1.5 million copies and been translated into 37 languages. Mandel has since published *The Glass Hotel* and *Sea of Tranquility*, both bestsellers that further cemented her status in literary circles.

*Exit Party* revisits Ari, a character originally introduced as an antagonistic figure in Mandel’s 2010 novel *The Singer’s Gun*. Ari returns after serving an 18-year prison sentence, providing a lens to explore how individuals evolve across time and circumstances. Mandel characterises Ari as a sort of temporal migrant, reflecting the fluidity of identity and memory.

Mandel acknowledges a personal fascination with intuition and subtle precognition, though she downplays any suggestion of psychic ability. She recounts uneasy moments leading up to the pandemic when plans felt “inert” or unconvincing, experiences that inform her nuanced portrayals of uncertainty and foreboding.

Writing *Exit Party* during 2022, Mandel conceived one timeline steeped in chaos and civil conflict, reflecting contemporary fears, and another depicting a creeping totalitarianism where citizens spy on each other and disappear without explanation. She noted how rapidly real-world events appeared to align with the darker scenarios she imagined, underscoring the novel’s timeliness.

Mandel describes her creative process as organic and exploratory, likening early drafts to “a sculptor’s block of clay” from which the story gradually emerges. This iterative approach has also expanded into television, where Mandel has contributed to writers’ rooms for projects such as Netflix’s adaptation of *Assassin’s Creed* and is currently developing a pilot based on *Exit Party*.

On a personal note, Mandel remarried in 2025 to photographer Laura Barisonzi following a divorce in 2022, marking a new chapter in her life amid the backdrop of a world shaped by pandemics and upheaval.

With *Exit Party*, Mandel continues to interrogate contemporary anxieties through speculative narratives that challenge readers to consider how fragile the boundaries between reality and fiction have become.