Arthur Leander

The pivotal character in the novel was born in Canada but found success in Hollywood. A complex character, Arthur seems caring and thoughtful at times but his string of relationships and insensitive transitioning between partners reveals the negative influence of his fame. His deteriorating friendship with Clark is symbolic of this when Clark notices Arthur no longer converses with him in the usual manner but appears to be performing. Clark also acknowledges Arthur’s disrespectful treatment of Miranda when he brings his new love interest to a dinner party he and Miranda host. Arthur appears to reach a contemplative point and vows to make changes but death intercedes and Arthur dies a victim of his own fame.

Arthur’s acting starts as a passion but is lost in the world of tabloid reporting and fame. He infrequently acknowledges the value of true art in that having watched Miranda devote time to each single frame of her graphic novel he is then able to hand such a labour of love over to a child. Akin to his King Lear character who divided his kingdom across his three daughters, Arthur’s life is divided across his three wives. Much like Lear, he travels and craves superficial flattery, love and affection at the expense of a deep relationship with one person. Arthur is obviously the central point for the novel but does not survive the apocalypse. His legacy is a book of sad confessions and tabloid clippings indicating a futile desire for fame over artistic endeavour and contrasts Kirsten’s unquenchable passion for the latter. Arthur leaves behind three wives, Miranda, Elizabeth and Lydia, as well as a son, Tyler.

Arthur Leander Quotes 

In the lobby, the people gathered at the bar clinked their glasses together. ‘To Arthur,’ they said. They drank for a few more minutes and then went their separate ways in the storm. Chapter 2

‘I prefer you with a crown.’ (Miranda) Chapter 15

‘I’ve been thinking about immortality lately. … They’re all immortal to me. First we only want to be seen, but once we’re seen, that’s not enough anymore. After that, we want to be remembered.’ (Frank) Chapter 34

‘Well, it’s nice that at least the celebrity gossip survived.’ (Kirsten) Chapter 38

Noted film and stage actor, dead at fifty-one. A life summed up in a series of failed marriages—Miranda, Elizabeth, Lydia—and a son, whose present absorption in his handheld Nintendo was absolute. When Arthur collapsed onstage, someone from the audience had performed CPR, the obituary said, but that audience member remained unidentified. Chapter 42

Miranda Carroll

Arthur’s first wife is young and, like Arthur, originates from Delano Island. After Miranda leaves her abusive artist boyfriend, Arthur steps in and they begin a sincere relationship. As Arthur’s fame increases and he becomes less interested in Miranda, Miranda embraces the inevitable and returns to the shipping job that she enjoys more than she often admits. Concurrently, she works on a graphic novel which in many ways becomes autobiographical. She steals scenes from life and uses them as her inspiration. Clark recognises one of these scenes decades later as Kirsten surrenders a copy of Dr Eleven to the museum. Miranda works meticulously on her artistic endeavour, truly for the sake of art itself, commenting that it does not matter if anyone ever sees the finished work.

Miranda is stranded in Singapore as the pandemic hits and spends her final moments looking out at the lights of the ships on the bay like a character from her novel. The scene is linked to Dr Eleven and the final scenes when Kirsten and Clark gaze at the lights. It embodies hope. Miranda is portrayed as a survivor even though she will not beat the pandemic. Despite her abusive boyfriend and unfaithful husband she has kept her creative spirit alive; she has created. Her legacy, unlike Arthur’s tabloid snaps, is a piece of art that inspires and changes lives.

Miranda Carroll Quotes

‘I repent nothing.’ (Miranda) Chapter 14

‘I’d prefer not to think that I’m following a script,’ Miranda says. Chapter 15

‘You’re always half on Station Eleven,’ Pablo said during a fight a week or so ago, ‘and I don’t even understand your project. What are you actually going for here?’
‘You don’t have to understand it,’ she said. ‘It’s mine.’ (Miranda) Chapter 14

A man was curled on his side near the elevators, shivering. She wanted to speak to him, but speaking would take too much strength, so she looked at him instead—I see you, I see you—and hoped this was enough. (Miranda in Malaysia) Chapter 41

Elizabeth Colton

Arthur’s second wife and the mother of his son, Tyler, appears as unexpectedly to the reader as she does to Arthur’s first wife, Miranda. As Miranda and Arthur host a dinner party for their anniversary, Miranda notices Arthur flirting with Elizabeth and it slowly dawns on her that their romance had already begun. Clark confirms this with words of consolidation as Miranda wrestles to face the unavoidable. Miranda dismisses the brutal affair as something that was supposed to happen. An actress in her own right, Elizabeth represents the increase in fame and the impact that it has had on Arthur. Elizabeth and Tyler survive the pandemic on their way to Arthur’s funeral.

Elizabeth resides with the community at Severn City Airport but is uncomfortable and unsettled with the passivity of the group. She becomes erratic, repeating the mantra ‘everything happens for a reason’ and insisting that the troubles will pass. One fellow passenger labels her a lunatic after she spends days clearing a runway in the hope that planes will arrive and suddenly the world would be right again. Her copy of the New Testament and repetitious mantra no doubt influence her young son. As they leave to join a group of religious travellers it is not difficult to comprehend that Tyler will become the Prophet.

Elizabeth Colton Quotes

‘No one ever thinks they’re awful, even people who really actually are. It’s some sort of survival mechanism.’
‘I think this is happening because it was supposed to happen,’ Elizabeth speaks very softly. (Miranda and Elizabeth) Chapter 15

‘Yeah but that’s because Elizabeth is a fucking lunatic,’ Garrett said. Chapter 43

Tyler Leander

A young Tyler has a strained relationship with his father, Arthur. He lives in Israel and has infrequent phone conversations that appear forced. Arthur feels the distance and vows to remedy the situation although it is a decision made too late.

Tyler is painted as a product of his environment. He survives the pandemic and looks to those around him to make sense of the situation. Stranded at the airport on the way to his father’s funeral, Tyler takes on his mother Elizabeth’s mantra of ‘everything happens for a reason’ and a religious fervour inspired by the New Testament and visiting zealots. Tyler’s theology is further influenced by the graphic novel, Dr Eleven. His polygamy can be attributed to his father whose many partners left him alone in Israel. Consistent with Mandel’s narrative in which characters are glimpsed across various time periods, the three snapshots of Tyler include: lonely child missing his father; troubled youngster questioning the meaning of the apocalypse; and vicious Prophet travelling and ruling with violence, snatching young women as brides against their will. In his final moments, Tyler is distracted by Kirsten quoting the Dr Eleven text to him, perhaps forcing him to question the unique ‘word’ given to him, and consequently questions his Messiah complex.

Tyler Leander Quotes

‘What if we were saved for a different reason?’
‘Saved?’ Clark was remembering why he didn’t talk to Tyler very often.
‘Some people were saved, people like us …. People who were good … people who weren’t weak.’ Chapter 44

‘The flu,’ the Prophet said, ‘the great cleansing that we suffered twenty years ago, that flu was our flood. The light we carry within us is the ark that carried Noah and his people over the face of the terrible waters, and I submit that we were saved’—his voice was rising—’not only to bring the light, to spread the light, but to be the light. We were saved because we are the light. We are the pure.’ Chapter 12

‘If you are the light, if your enemies are darkness, then there’s nothing that you cannot justify. There’s nothing you can’t survive, because there’s nothing that you will not do.’ (Kirsten) Chapter 23

Lydia Marks

Arthur’s third wife, Lydia, is his co-star in the film that just wrapped in Chicago. Jeevan photographs her coming out of a club in Los Angeles, bright-eyed and almost supernaturally put together at three in the morning. She is the sort of person who liked the paparazzi and sometimes actually called them in advance. Arthur reveals his decision to leave Elizabeth for Lydia to Jeevan when Jeevan is an entertainment journalist, a sign Arthur has transitioned further into the traps of fame. Mandel’s passive inclusion of Lydia completes Arthur’s demise. The reader knows Miranda and knows some of Elizabeth but knows nothing of Lydia thus a sense of a gradual loss of love and intimacy is drawn. Lydia and Arthur divorce after he lets her ‘slip away to somebody else’ and Arthur begins to question his journey, reaching out to Miranda and Tyler.

Tanya

Initially we see Tanya as Kirsten’s minder, employed to look after the child actors on the set of King Lear. When Arthur suffers a heart attack and Jeevan relinquishes his assistance to the doctors, Jeevan and Kirsten search for Tanya. It is only in the aftermath that we are made aware of Tanya and Arthur’s relationship. Arthur offers to pay for Tanya’s student loans and fondly remembers her sipping wine in a list of ‘good things’ he mentally writes. Tanya gives Kirsten the paperweight, a gift that will travel with her through the disaster and beyond, a moment of kindness that becomes her legacy.

Clark Thompson

A long-time friend of Arthur’s, Clark is a management consultant who works with corporate personnel to change behaviour and improve efficiency. In an interview, he concedes that he cannot change a person, only a person’s behaviour. Clark has been a good friend to Arthur since their college days but has grown weary and frustrated by their friendship which has become increasingly artificial.

Clark is spared the pandemic on the flight to Severn City Airport and takes a key position in the airport establishing the Museum of Civilisation. As the self-appointed curator, Clark begins collecting trinkets and items that represent pre-collapse society, a position he is perhaps qualified to undertake as an observer of people. Separated from his boyfriend, Robert, a lonely Clark watches as Elizabeth and Tyler unravel, Kirsten arrives, and a new society begins to flicker into existence. It is Clark’s gift of the paperweight, a symbol of the practicality of simple things and human relatedness, that sends it on its enduring journey eventually returning to him as a sign of kindness rewarded.

Clark Thompson Quotes

There is a magnificent year when they are inseparable and go out four nights a week with fake IDs, and then when both of them are nineteen. (Clark and Arthur) Chapter 13

Her gaze falls on the gift that Clark brought this evening, a paperweight of clouded glass. (Miranda) Chapter 15

He was performing. Clark had thought he was meeting his oldest friend for dinner, but Arthur wasn’t having dinner with a friend, Clark realized, so much as having dinner with an audience. Chapter 17

Jeevan Chaudhary

Jeevan works as a paparazzo, snapping unsolicited pictures of celebrities for tabloid magazines. He stalks Arthur and Miranda and snaps Miranda in the shock of learning about Arthur’s infidelity. He graduates to an entertainment journalist position and interviews Arthur when Arthur discloses to him that he is leaving his second wife. This brush with fame leaves Jeevan seeking much more. He starts to train as a paramedic and it is this training that spurs him to leap to the stage as Arthur’s heart gives way.

Jeevan’s caring nature triumphs over the financial and artificial pull of the world he lives in. Jeevan cares for a dying Arthur then nurtures a small frightened Kirsten. Afterwards, being warned by his friend Hua, he stocks up on supplies and saves his paraplegic brother Frank. After Frank suicides to help Jeevan move on, Jeevan is sad and alone but embodies the caring and sacrificial nature of humanity by becoming a doctor in the new world. He lives a simple life, married and with a child, and renders assistance where he can.

Jeevan Chaudhary Quotes

But Arthur Leander was running out of time. He swayed, his eyes unfocused, and it was obvious to Jeevan that he wasn’t Lear anymore. Chapter 1

He was a small, insignificant thing, drifting down the shore. He had never felt so alive or so sad. (Jeevan) Chapter 36

No one looked at Jeevan, and it occurred to him that his role in this performance was done. Chapter 1

On silent afternoons in his brother’s apartment, Jeevan found himself thinking about how human the city is, how human everything is. We bemoaned the impersonality of the modern world, but that was a lie, it seemed to him; it had never been impersonal at all. There had always been a massive delicate infrastructure of people, all of them working unnoticed around us, and when people stop going to work, the entire operation grinds to a halt. Chapter 30

A thousand miles to the south of the airport, Jeevan is baking bread in an outdoor oven. He rarely thinks of his old life anymore, although he has dreams sometimes about a stage, an actor fallen in the shimmering snow … Chapter 52

Frank Chaudhary

Jeevan’s brother, Frank, had been shot while on assignment in a war zone. He is a paraplegic and the writer of autobiographies when the pandemic strikes. Jeevan arrives at his apartment with supplies and they hole up waiting to see what will happen. Frank continues to write even though there is a good chance that the man he is writing for is dead. Faced with the reality that society has collapsed, Frank considers what to do. He says he will never return to a war zone and anticipates that the new world will begin in a violent war-like manner. Knowing his brother will be hindered by his presence, Frank makes the ultimate sacrifice by taking his own life. The sacrifice is portrayed as significant as Jeevan names his son after his brother and reflects kindly about him in later life.

Frank Chaudhary Quotes

‘There’s still a world out there,’ Jeevan said, ‘outside this apartment.’
‘I think there’s just survival out there, Jeevan. I think you should go out there and try to survive.’ (Frank and Jeevan) Chapter 32

Kirsten Raymonde

Kirsten is an eight-year-old child actor when the pandemic strikes. She is a part of the production of King Lear starring Arthur Leander. She has a passion for acting and often spends time with Arthur. They share a bond and he gives her copies of Dr Eleven, a graphic novel created by his first wife Miranda. Kirsten is there when Arthur’s heart gives way and meets Jeevan who rushes on stage to help.

A member of the Travelling Symphony, Miranda not only survives the catastrophe but manages to maintain her pre-collapse dream. Embodying the motto ‘survival is not enough’, Kirsten does what she has to do. Several knife tattoos on her wrist indicate violence and death but Kirsten also does what she loves to do. Her character represents the survival of the human spirit and the importance of culture. Her connection to the old world is vague and held together by collecting articles about Arthur and treasuring the copies of Dr Eleven. Her presence in the final scene alongside Clark, watching the lights flicker in the distance, indicates hope and validates her efforts to maintain culture until the world can rebuild itself.

Kirsten Raymonde Quotes

‘I can’t remember the year we spent on the road, and I think that means I can’t remember the worst of it. But my point is, doesn’t it seem to you that the people who have the hardest time in this—this current era, whatever you want to call it, the world after the Georgia Flu—doesn’t it seem like the people who struggle the most with it are the people who remember the old world clearly?’ (Kirsten) Chapter 37

All three caravans of the Traveling Symphony are labelled as such, THE TRAVELING SYMPHONY lettered in white on both sides, but the lead caravan carries an additional line of text: Because survival is insufficient. Chapter 11

I stood looking over my damaged home and tried to forget the sweetness of life on Earth. (From Dr Eleven) Chapter 8

What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty. Chapter 11

‘If you are the light, if your enemies are darkness, then there’s nothing that you cannot justify. There’s nothing you can’t survive, because there’s nothing that you will not do.’ (Kirsten) Chapter 23

She had once met an old man up near Kincardine who’d sworn that the murdered follow their killers to the grave, and she was thinking of this as they walked, the idea of dragging souls across the landscape like cans on a string. The way the archer had smiled, just at the end. (Kirsten) Chapter 50

She stepped back. ‘It isn’t possible,’ she said.
‘But there it is. Look again.’
In the distance, pinpricks of light arranged into a grid. There, plainly visible on the side of a hill some miles distant: a town, or a village, whose streets were lit up with electricity. (Kirsten and Clark) Chapter 51

‘What I mean to say is, the more you remember, the more you’ve lost.’ (Kirsten) Chapter 37

The Travelling Symphony

As a nomadic group of actors, the Travelling Symphony moves across the Great Lakes region performing before communities and settlements. It symbolises the lasting and permanent nature of culture and humanity. Bringing pleasure to the communities as it passes through, the group spends its time foraging through abandoned houses and hunting for food. In a procession of converted pickups and horse-drawn vans, the group has a set cyclic route. It lives by the motto, ‘survival is insufficient’ from Star Trek, which is painted on the side of one of the caravans, and aims to sustain joy, music and art in the new world. Gil, the director, is 72 and leads the troupe through a mixed life of danger, survival and performances. Kirsten is a performing member and was once intimate with Sayid. She still has strong feelings for him, never more apparent than when she saves him from the Prophet.

Underscoring the paradox that while the creative arts side of humanity will survive the group so too will its petty squabbles and jealousies, Sayid writes ‘Sartre: hell is other people’ in pen inside one of the caravans and someone scratches out ‘other people’ and substitutes ‘flutes’. The group is close-knit and returns to the town of St Deborah by the Waters to reunite with Charlie and Jeremy, a couple who remained behind to have a child. Deiter, who is killed by the Prophet’s men, is considered by Kirsten as one of her ‘dearest friends’. Kirsten’s other friend August is a faithful help when the two are separated and hunted by the Prophet, his dog, and his men.

Despite the unwanted attention and unwelcome violence perpetrated on the small group, it reunites in Severn City Airport and eventually continues south to bring more entertainment and culture to the new world. A significant ending emblematises the unquenchable nature of the human spirit.

The Travelling Symphony Quotes

They walked slowly with weapons in hand, the actors running their lines and the musicians trying to ignore the actors, scouts watching for danger ahead and behind on the road. (Travelling Symphony) Chapter 7

‘People want what was best about the world,’ Dieter said. He himself found it difficult to live in the present. He’d played in a punk band in college and longed for the sound of an electric guitar. Chapter 7

Some towns are easier to visit than others. Some places have elected mayors or they’re run by elected committees. Sometimes a cult takes over, and those towns are the most dangerous. Chapter 18

‘Because survival is insufficient,’ words painted on the canopy in answer to the question that had dogged the Symphony since they’d set out on the road. Chapter 23