Emily St. John Mandel's latest novel 'Exit Party' explores identity in a near-future world

NPR | By Scott Simon

Published September 12, 2026 at 8:04 AM EDT

NPR's Scott Simon talks with Emily St. John Mandel about her new novel, "Exit Party." Set in the near future, it's an exploration of identity involving doppelgangers and a mysterious painting.

Related Content

A war correspondent and a missing woman are at the center of Kate Atkinson's new postwar novel 'Our Noble Selves'

Scott Simon

In Kate Atkinson's new postwar novel, a former war reporter is the suspect when a French woman goes missing. NPR's Scott Simon talks to Atkinson about "Our Noble Selves."
R. F. Kuang taps memories and regrets for her new novel 'Taipei Story'

The novel centers around rising Yale sophomore Lily Chen and her summer at an intensive Chinese-language course in Taiwan.
Arts & Culture

Colson Whitehead brings Harlem through the ages to New Hampshire

Julia Barnett, Olivia Comolli

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead visits the Capitol Center for the Arts to sit down with NHPR’s Julia Barnett and discuss the third and final novel in his Harlem trilogy, Cool Machine.
How the Sept. 11 attacks remade life in America

Tonya Mosley

In Homeland: The War on Terror in American Life, Richard Beck links the attacks to an expansion of government surveillance, increased hate crimes against Muslim Americans and the rise of Donald Trump.
It's 2031, and the U.S. has 'come undone' in Emily St. John Mandel's 'Exit Party'

Maureen Corrigan

Exit Party presents an arresting vision of a world in which time is porous and people are duplicated. Like Mandel's prior novels, it's ingenious, eerie and complex — and it hits close to home.

You make NHPR possible.

NHPR is nonprofit and independent. We rely on readers like you to support the local, national, and international coverage on this website. Your support makes this news available to everyone.

Give today. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference.