Emily St. John Mandel on Time Travel, Parenting and the Apocalypse
About this episode
Klein talks with novelist Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven, The Glass Hotel, and Sea of Tranquility, about time travel, pandemics, and the stories we tell about catastrophe. Mandel discusses why she keeps returning to post-apocalyptic worlds, what the pandemic taught her about ordinary details and human connection, and how writing Station Eleven before COVID changed her relationship to disaster. They explore simulation theory and the multiverse, the ethics of fictional world-building, colonialism in science fiction, memory and grief, parenting in uncertain times, and why catastrophe in her novels so often reveals people's capacity for care rather than cruelty.