Book Review: Last Night in Montreal

Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel

When she is seven, Lillia's father abducts her--her arms heavily bandaged--from her mother's home. They spend the next nine years traveling across states, changing names sometimes daily.

At 22, Lillia doesn't know how to live in one places, and she leaves a string of abandoned loves behind her in cities across the United States. When she leaves Eli in Brooklyn, he determines to find her. Eventually, he travels to winter-bound Montreal, where he meets Michaela. She claims to know where Lillia is but will only tell Eli if he tells her about a car accident that happened when Lillia was sixteen. He refuses--daily--for weeks.

Eli and Michaela continue to meet, sharing every other thought and story but the one the other so desperately wants to hear.

The book flashes from moment to moment, from character to character: Lillia on the road with her father and then on her own, leaving clues in hotel Bibles; Eli tracing her path and searching, increasingly frustrated; Michaela, abandoned by her absent mother and father--the private investigator trailing and then haunted by Lillia, who was badly injured in a car accident when Lillia was sixteen.
It ends tragically, and although the character may not get entirely what they want by the last page, they do find a measure of peace.
Compared to Station Eleven, this book has a much darker, less hopeful tone. Where Station Eleven speaks of hope and the triumph of humanity, this one speaks more of loss and learning to live with that loss. There is still hope here, still great love and compassion and sacrifice, but because of the echoing emptiness from both the setting and some of the characters, I would recommend Station Eleven over Last Night in Montreal. That is not to say it's not a beautiful book or a well written one. It is both. It's just that I can set down Station Eleven with a sigh of peace and small smile of contentment, but I set down Last Night in Montreal with an ache in my throat and a fierce need to hug each of my loved ones for a very long time.