SEA OF TRANQUILITY by Emily St. John Mandel – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

SEA OF TRANQUILITY by Emily St. John Mandel – ReviewSea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Published by Knopf on April 5 2022
Genres: Adult, Literary fiction, Speculative fiction
Pages: 272
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher via Edelweiss
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five-stars

The nitty-gritty: Emily St. John Mandel explores the tenuous boundaries between the past, present and future in Sea of Tranquility, a thoughtful and emotional journey through time. 

“We knew it was coming.”

Once again, Emily St. John Mandel has written a thought-provoking, luminous story about the future, the past, and all the moments in between. Sea of Tranquility isn’t a sequel, but you will have a much richer and more enjoyable reading experience if you read The Glass Hotel first. Mandel weaves events and characters together from both books in unexpected ways, and because I didn’t realize this when I started reading, I had lots of moments of “Hey that’s Vincent from the last book!” or “Wait, she’s talking about Alkaitis’s Ponzi scheme!” You should also know this is a time travel story that flits back and forth from 1912 to 2401 and many points in between, a story that takes place both on Earth and on the Moon, where dome colonies have been established in the future. In fact, the book’s title refers to the first Moon colony which was built near the Sea of Tranquility, the site where man first walked on the moon in 1969.

The story revolves around several main characters who, for one reason or another, are tied together because of an odd time anomaly. We meet Edwin St. John St. Andrew in 1912, the youngest of three brothers. After being banished to Canada by his father for making a shocking political statement at a dinner party, Edwin finds himself in the small town of Caiette, Vancouver. One day he wanders into the forest, where he experiences an odd flash of darkness followed by the sounds of a violin playing and the muffled chatter of a crowd of people.

In 2020, we meet Mirella, a woman who has decided to look up an old friend she hasn’t heard from in a while. She attends a concert put on by Paul Smith, her friend Vincent’s brother. Paul’s performance includes a strange video taken by Vincent when she was a teenager. In the video, Vincent enters a forest and then the video goes dark for a moment there is the sound of a violin and a crowd of people.

Finally, in 2203 the story shifts to a writer named Olive Llewellyn, whose latest book, Marienbad, has just been made into a movie, and so her publisher has sent her on a book tour to promote the new edition. Within the pages of Olive’s book is a passage about a character in an airship terminal who stops to listen to a violin player. In an instant, he is “transported” briefly to a forest. 

Tying all these instances together is a time traveler named Gaspery Roberts, who works for a company called the Time Institute and is sent back from his own time in 2401 to investigate these odd coincidences of overlapping events. 

And that’s the plot in a nutshell, although I’ve given you just the briefest of recaps. Sea of Tranquility has so many layers, it’s nearly impossible to describe the story without spoiling it. Mandel’s construction is simply brilliant. The story isn’t told in chronological order, but jumps around seemingly haphazardly, introducing us to the characters and dropping hints about how they are connected. For example, we meet Gaspery in the first chapter, although you won’t know it’s him until much later. In one of Mirella’s chapters, there’s an ominous flashback to when she was a young schoolgirl and she witnessed a murder. Much later in the story you find out how this event is connected to Gaspery. Even more intriguing is Olive’s story and the mysteries surrounding her book, Marienbad. One of the main characters in the novel is named Gaspery-Jacques, and eventually the reader comes to wonder where the name came from. Did she base it off the real Gaspery, or was Gaspery named after the character in the book? And what about the violin? I could hardly believe the twist that came at the end, it was mind blowing!

As I mentioned before, Mandel includes characters and events from The Glass Hotel, and she even echoes some of the themes of Station Eleven. Paul and Vincent played big roles in The Glass Hotel, and even though Vincent isn’t in this story, her mysterious disappearance at the end of the book is mentioned several times. I especially loved the fact that the video Vincent took of the time anomaly in the last book is the focus in Sea of Tranquility. The Canadian town of Caiette, where Edwin ends up, is the setting for much of The Glass Hotel. All these Easter eggs were so much fun to discover, and I’m pretty sure I even missed some of them, which is why I’d love to reread this at some point.

This is also a pandemic story, but before you run away screaming (I get it, we’re all sick of the pandemic and who wants to read about it?), this is probably the best of the recent pandemic stories I’ve read. In Olive’s timeline, a pandemic is brewing overseas but hasn’t yet made it to the United States, where Olive is doing her book tour. It reminded me so much of those very early days of Covid (before it even had a name) when everything was just a rumor. Olive herself isn’t worried at all, although what she doesn’t know is that the pandemic has already arrived and she’s actually in grave danger. Even stranger, Olive’s book is about a pandemic, and she’s spent a great deal of time researching pandemics of the past (including Covid). Mandel expresses our collective thoughts of Covid so well, feelings we’ve all had at one point or another, like the way we initially brushed off the danger and kept sending our children to school, but in hindsight realized it was the wrong thing to do. One repeated phrase—”We knew it was coming”—was a chilling statement about realizing the danger only in hindsight.

Some of the author’s thoughts about time travel felt familiar, like the temptation to go back in time in order to change horrible things, or even save someone you know is going to die. Gaspery knows there are consequences for breaking the rules, and yet it’s human nature for him to ignore those rules. But Mandel has a way of seeing things from unusual angles, and “familiar” takes on new meaning in her books.

I can’t recommend Emily St. John Mandel’s novels highly enough, especially to readers who appreciate thought provoking ideas and observations about life. Don’t miss it.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

My review of The Glass Hotel

Posted April 11, 2022 by Tammy in 5 stars, Reviews / 31 Comments

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31 responses to “SEA OF TRANQUILITY by Emily St. John Mandel – Review”

  1. Maddalena@spaceandsorcery

    This author has been on my radar for a long time, since Station Eleven has been recommended to me both by fellow bloggers and a couple of friends, so I should really pick up her books because your review makes her writing sound delightfully layered, and a great reading experience. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
    Maddalena@spaceandsorcery recently posted…DEAD SILENCE, by S.A. BarnesMy Profile

    Reply
    • Tammy

      It is interesting. I didn’t even mention in my review that she has some interesting observations about being a writer. You’d probably love it.

      Reply
    • Tammy

      Oh sorry! I ended up getting a copy from Edelweiss, and then I bought it too because I NEED to own a copy:-)

      Reply
    • Tammy

      I don’t think you have to read them first, but if you enjoy Sea of Tranquility, you might want to go back and read The Glass Hotel.

      Reply
    • Tammy

      The Glass Hotel is completely different from Station Eleven, so depending on what you didn’t like about that book, you may enjoy it:-)

      Reply
  10. todd

    I really do like the sound of this. And I love how it’s not necessarily a strict series but the books are inter-linked, just the same. I love when you get that added level of depth to a story. Looks like I picked up an ebook of The Glass House last year so I’ll absolutely give that one a try at some point, and if I enjoy it I’m sure I’ll try this one, too.

    Reply

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