Emily St. John Mandel’s moon colony novel, written entirely during COVID, comes out in April.
Exciting book news for your Monday! Emily St. John Mandel—of The Glass Hotel and Station Eleven, which could be said to be one of the great pre-COVID pandemic novels—has written a new novel, to be published by Knopf on April 19th. Sea of Tranquility is a time travel story, spanning from early 20th-century British Columbia to an outpost on the moon in 2401.
According to Jenny Jackson, Vice President and Executive Editor of Knopf, despite the wide time range, Sea of Tranquility is about our current moment. “In Sea of Tranquility, Emily blends historical fiction, science fiction, and autofiction to reveal essential human truths,” said Jackson. “She captures the moment we are living through with devastating emotional precision.”
Mandel conceived and wrote Sea of Tranquility during the pandemic. “I spent the entirety of 2020 in New York City,” said Mandel. “This is the kind of book that happens when you’re working in a soundscape of constant ambulance sirens. There is, of course, a time traveler in it. There is also an author living on a moon colony who visits Earth on a book tour.” Moon colonies, time travel, and autofiction—sign me up.
