Emily St John Mandel: ‘When half the electorate disagrees on basic reality, how do you come back from that?’

Her hit novel Station Eleven seemed to predict the pandemic, now the novelist is tackling the future of the US. She talks about chance, world-building and experiencing a ‘tiny bit’ of clairvoyance When Emily St John Mandel was a child she had a dream that would stay with her for decades.

It was a nightmare in which “I was trying to find my dad in a crowd, and there were other people who looked like him but weren’t him”, she says. “It just kind of struck my imagination. ” Forty-ish years later, Mandel’s seventh novel, Exit Party, opens with a gathering in Los Angeles, 2031,…