Emily St. John Mandel has turned her concerns about America’s political climate into ‘Exit Party’, a speculative novel set in a fractured near-future United States, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
Mandel began developing the book in Los Angeles in 2022 while waiting for the adaptation of her novel ‘The Glass Hotel’ to move forward. The project eventually stalled amid changes at HBO and Warner Bros.
During that time, Mandel revisited Ari, a character from her second novel, ‘The Singer’s Gun’. She imagined Ari emerging from 18 years in prison into a chaotic but hopeful future.
‘Exit Party’ follows Ari at a party celebrating the lifting of a citywide curfew in Los Angeles, where she discovers a portal to an alternate world in which the city has become a surveillance state.
Mandel said she was less interested in explaining how the United States collapsed than in exploring what happened afterwards. She also expects readers to connect the novel with their own political anxieties.
The author is continuing to work in television. She recently worked on ‘Assassin’s Creed’ and is writing ‘Last Night in Montreal’ with Semi Chellas. Natalie Leite has joined the project as director, with an actor already attached.
Mandel also reflected on Hollywood’s casting culture, saying she has witnessed producers question whether actresses are “too old” despite being only 27. She said she often argues for casting actresses older than the characters she originally wrote.
