Station Eleven

 A Canadian writer named Emily St. John Mandel wrote Station Eleven. This is a dystopian look at people in the Great Lakes region after the "Georgia Flu" killed 90% of the population. Now there is no more U.S. nor Canada. There is no electricity. There is no internet. The few people who are left are just trying to survive. The story starts out during a production of King Lear at a theater. A child actress, 8 years old, is on stage when the actor who played King Lear fell dead from a heart attack. She is one of the few people who survive the flu. She is traveling with a group of entertainers. One night they do a Shakespeare play and the next night the orchestra plays. They travel around Lake Michigan performing at places where survivors have gathered to live. By now all the stores and homes have been ransacked so they are living on fish, foraged food, rabbits and deer. Station Eleven is the name of a comic book that the child actress had and kept with her for the past twenty years. The topic is dark. The author has a way of telling the story in an understated fashion that was a pleasure to read. I understand HBO made this into a mini-series. I think I would rather keep the pictures and scenes I imagined while reading the book that watch the mini-series.