Emily St. John Mandel on Fact, Fiction, and the Familiar
Conversations with Tyler
Conversations with Tyler
4.8 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2020
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Tyler requested an interview with novelist Emily St. John Mandel, he didn't expect that reality would have in some ways become an eerie mirror of her latest books. And Emily didn't expect that it'd be boosting sales: "Why would anybody in their right mind want to read Station Eleven during a pandemic?" she wondered to Tyler. Her reaction was pure bafflement until she found herself renting Contagion and thought about why. "There's just such a longing in times of uncertainty to see how it ends." Narratives, especially familiar ones, soothe us. It's fitting then that her latest book has been suggested as "the perfect novel for your survival bunker."
She joined Tyler to discuss The Glass Hotel, including why more white-collar criminals don't flee before arrest, the Post Secret postcard that haunts her most, the best places to hide from the Russian mob, the Canadian equivalent of the "Florida Man", whether trophy wives are happy, how to slow down time, why she disagrees with Kafka on reading, the safest place to be during a global pandemic, how to get away with faking your own death, how A Canticle for Leibowitz influenced her writing, the permeability of moral borders, what surprised her about experiencing a real pandemic, how her background in contemporary dance makes her a better writer, adapting The Glass Hotel for a miniseries, her contrarian take on Frozen II, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.
Recorded March 27th, 2020
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, |
| 0:08.3 | bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. |
| 0:12.5 | Learn more at mercatis.org. |
| 0:15.2 | And for more conversations, including videos, transcripts, and upcoming dates, visit |
| 0:20.4 | ConversationsWithT Tyler.com. |
| 0:27.1 | Hello everyone and welcome to ConversationsWithT Tyler. |
| 0:30.7 | Today we're here with Emily St. John Mandel, who is written two of my most favorite contemporary |
| 0:36.6 | novels. |
| 0:37.6 | Her new book out is The Glass Hotel, which I think is her very best, deepest, most subtle |
| 0:42.9 | novel. |
| 0:43.9 | Her biggest selling book to date is Station 11. |
| 0:46.9 | Now it so turns out that Emily's two books are about a pandemic and in part a financial |
| 0:51.9 | crisis. |
| 0:52.9 | Believe it or not, it is pure coincidence that I am speaking to her today. |
| 0:57.0 | It is in fact that I enjoyed these novels so much and thus reality is in some modest |
| 1:02.9 | ways catching up to what she's been writing about. |
| 1:05.6 | Emily, thank you for being with us. |
| 1:07.1 | My pleasure. |
| 1:08.1 | Thanks for interviewing me. |
| 1:09.4 | Let me start with an unusual question. |
| 1:11.6 | Okay. |
| 1:12.6 | How bad would it be for you to be exiled to Dubai for the rest of your life? |
... |
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