Exit Party is the latest novel by Emily St. John Mandel. I have previously mentioned loving Station Eleven and I enjoyed St. John Mandel’s last novel, Sea of Tranquility. Exit Party has an intriguing premise that hooked me from the start, but I have spent a lot of time since finishing this novel ruminating over what it means to really get any enjoyment out of it.

Exit Party begins in Los Angeles in the year 2031 after the United States has collapsed and various states have broken off to form their own countries, including the Republic of California. Ari, a character from St. John Mandel’s novel, The Singer’s Gun (which I have not read and which you do not need to read before reading Exit Party), has just been released from prison after spending almost twenty years incarcerated for trying to have her cousin, Anton (the main character from The Singer’s Gun), killed. On the night the Republic of California lifts curfew, Ari and her roommate, Gloria, go to a house party hosted by Gloria’s friend, Kareem. Ari notices that the party has a strange vibe to it. A woman in a silver dress who appears moments later in shorts and a t-shirt, calls Ari by her legal name, Ibari, a name she never uses and that nobody should know. A painting on the floor vanishes right before Ari’s eyes. Kareem disappears into his kitchen and is never seen again.

The memory of the party haunts Ari for the rest of her life as she first resettles in the Ohio Republic and takes up with an arms dealer, then later flees to Europe and becomes known as a wealthy art collector in Paris. While she is in Ohio, Ari meets a woman named Nico who looks exactly like Gloria, only she actually is Gloria from a different version of the US and she has accidentally travelled to Ari’s version of the US and can’t get home.

The latter part of Exit Party takes us to Nico’s version of the US, a surveillance state where elections no longer happen and the presidency is passed from father to son (ugh, could you imagine?), where people are expected to inform on each other, and where dissenters are disappeared, never to be seen again. People can’t leave the country without getting an exit visa, but at least this version of the US is more technologically advanced (better for spying) and there are vaccines that prevent cancer. Here Ari is known as Ibari and she has had a long career in the Internal Intelligence Service, but as she gets closer to retirement, she becomes unsettled by how her country operates and the role she has played in its operation.

My feelings toward Ari/Ibari are indifference. They are not good people, but they are not particularly bad people either. They are each a product of their environment, but I did not find either of them interesting enough to care about them. For me, they were merely vehicles to learn more about the fascinating dualling worlds created by St. John Mandel. The two versions of the US are extreme opposites, but each place is a nightmare for the people who live in them. And this is what I have been grappling with since I finished reading this book. What does St. John Mandel want us to take away from this story when she presents two versions of the US that both are horrible to live in?

The answer must lie in the painting that is interwoven through Ari/Ibari’s stories, the painting that Ari saw disappear before her eyes at Kareem’s party and later purchases from Gloria when they are both living in Paris. This painting is an object that the characters focus on because it gives them meaning in a life that feels futile. So, no matter how much of a dumpster fire the world is, put your energy into the things that give you meaning. Or, as my therapist tells me, focus on the things you can control, that make you happy. An easy sentiment to put into words, but harder to put to practical use, which is why I feel somewhat lackluster towards this book because there isn’t really a happy ending for any of the characters. I started Exit Party feeling excited and finished it feeling confused disappointment.