From Calgary to New York City

Yes, you are also from Canada.

I often think about what would have happened if I had just stayed in Calgary.

Yeah. Canada is a little colder.

It’s a little cooler now.

You see, now here we are, both very level-headed people in New York City.

Yes, it’s thriving.

Live your best life. It’s a very stressful life, but here it is.

How Environment Shapes a Character

Ali and Ibari grow up in different versions of the country. They are deeply shaped by their country. I saw Ali as a character with a fundamental flaw in her attraction to crime. Maybe it’s not even a flaw. Maybe it’s just an interest.

Because while there’s a version of the world where she does the obvious thing and becomes a criminal, there’s also another version of the world where she does what leads her to become a police officer. It was interesting to think about whether we gravitate in one direction or another depending on the environment we grew up in.

Both versions of America that you portray in this book are truly terrifying in their own ways. Have you found yourself drawn to preferring one over the other? Is there a version you’d like to live in?

No, both are really difficult. Both are terrible. Frankly speaking, Canada is where I want to live. It’s like, do you want to live in chaos or in a totalitarian police state? Both are hard passes.

Chaos, Totalitarianism and the Future

This is an idea I’ve thought about a lot. No country lasts forever, and that idea contains both fear and hope. Totalitarian police states will not last forever, nor will eras of total chaos.

What I wanted to suggest—and this is a profound perspective for those who have read many of my works—is that in Sea of Silence, there is a futuristic section where the author goes on a book tour in the year 2300, traveling between the Republic of California, the Atlantic Republic and the Kingdom of Deseret. Cold enough to support a book tour.

But yeah, I wanted to suggest that this is the founding story of that space.

The Mandel Cinematic Universe

You have a history of bringing people and worlds from your past work into new books, and that continues today in Exit Party.

You have talked about it as a multiverse, a cinematic universe. The New Yorker called it the “Mandel Cinematic Universe,” which I think is pretty great. Is there a master plan here, or do you plan on the fly when inspiration strikes?

I wish I could say I had a brain that could hold an entire multiverse. I wish I could just say yes, but, umm, no. There are no plans.

That’s the baseline from which I start reading individual books, but also thinking about Mandel’s poetry, as some people call it. There is no master plan that I am working on.

I just love the opportunity to connect. I think I have an abstract longing for order in a chaotic universe. I love finding moments when books pull together, and sometimes I fall in love with a particular character and want to spend more time with them.